The Book of Esther

The Book of Esther has just been read for the holiday of Purim. It tells the compelling story of an attempt to destroy the Jews for worshipping God instead of men, though God is not mentioned in the book.

At the heart of the story come four sentences that form its moral center. Brought to mind in almost any circumstances, a friend noted, they would significantly improve one’s life.

In the story, the evil Haman has persuaded the king to decree that the Jews be destroyed. Esther, the king’s favorite and a Jew, is charged by her elder cousin Mordechai to request the king to save her people. She tells Mordechai that it is death to appear before the king without being called unless the king holds out his golden scepter to the supplicant, whereupon Mordechai exhorts her:

“Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews.”

You are the member of a people who exist to serve God. From that calling and its potential cost not even the house of the king offers protection. (We live in the richest and most comfortable circumstances in the history of the world. Are we to worship riches and comfort?)

“For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed.”

God will effect salvation one way or another, but to hide from your role in it is to be destroyed. There is no safety in fear.

“And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

You have been raised to the height of favor. Why? By whom? The king thinks he has raised you for your beauty and charm. To leave it at that is to worship men. But perhaps—whether you know it or not (and no one can be certain)—you have been placed where you are to play this part, which none else can play, in the story of salvation, and in the lives of all who may hear of you.

Esther responds:

Go fast for me for three days, I will fast too, “and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.”

Length of days and wealth and power and beauty are not life’s ends but its means to higher ends not all visible to us. In choosing to play her part in the story, whose end she cannot foresee, Esther defines for all of us the virtue of courage in the service of the good.