5/12/2024: Esther 4:14
If you are king you can do anything you want…but not so much for the queen. Queen Vashti of Persia was deposed because she refused to parade her beauty in front of the king’s friends at a royal banquet (Est 1:1-20). This led to a nation wide search for the most beautiful virgins to join the king’s harem and possibly become queen. Esther, raised by her cousin Mordecai, kept her Jewish heritage hidden, but not her beauty. She pleased the king and was selected as queen (Est 2:1-18).
Meanwhile, Mordecai got into a tiff with Haman, the king’s number one counselor.
Haman, knowing Mordecai was Jewish, enticed the king to send an edict out that all Jews should be slaughtered and their wealth taken from them.
When Mordecai heard what was being planned, he called on Esther to appeal to the
king on her and the Jews behalf. This unorthodox approach to a tyrant could result in death…but Esther yielded to Mordecai’s reasoning that she could have been given royal influence “for such a time as this”…and that if she must die, she must die… (Est 4:1-16).
Could it be that you and I, also, have been place where we are for “such a time as this?” Could it be that our own courage to do the right thing is the only way