Esther 6: Reward
Saturday, June 15, 2019
God is fully aware that his show of mercy stirs jealousy in the hearts of others, and so he prepares plans for these contingences. We have seen and we have been told and we have experienced the fact that God will always turn harm to good. The extremity or numbers or layers in any given situation are never too much for God to handle. He is more than up to the challenge . . . for he is the creator of all we see and experience.
Today’s reading – another of my favorites – takes us to the beginning of another story of how a woman saves a nation. It takes us to the place in the narrative where we see how the seed of envy blooms into a fully-blown narcissistic tantrum which in the end brings down the initiator rather than the intended victim. Mordecai, a Jewish man living in the Persian court of King Xerxes (or Ahauserus), and his niece Esther, who is married to this King, have submitted their plea for justice. The King has responded and now we await the sentence he will deliver. As the king struggles with the plots that surround him and the information which has been brought to him, he goes back to a former event – a time when Mordecai saved his life by warning him of an assassination plot. When we read today, we see how the evil plotted against goodness has a way – in God’s plan and in God’s timeline – of returning to visit itself upon the perpetrator. What happens next to Haman is the very consequence he had wished to deliver to Mordecai and Esther – it is a punishment born out of the darkness of envy, and it goes home to exterminate its originator.
If you have time today, read this story through. Different Bibles have different methods of presenting the material that was later inserted to flesh out the story but it is worth the trouble of sorting through all of this. The story of Esther who would rather hide than confront evil with goodness and truth is its own reward. Today’s lesson that we cannot understand how things will unravel around us is a story to carry in our hearts. It both cautions us against entertaining ideas of revenge and it bolsters us in our hope that ultimately the light will overcome the darkness. All is revealed. All accounts are paid. In full. And this is what we have the opportunity to ponder today.
Reward often carries with it the fact that some human beings will covet the good fortune of others. Some human beings will wish destruction for those who receive gifts from the king. It remains with us to wait patiently for the ultimate outcome which the just king always delivers. Those who plot in the darkness are done in by the very mechanism they set into motion. This is divine justice at its best. It is for the follower of Christ to discern his or her place in God’s plan, to be patient as events unfold, and to pray for the redemption of those who delight in the darkness.
Written on June 4, 2009 and re-posted today.
Image from: http://www.artbible.info/art/large/94.html
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