Hope Filled Word

Day 89: Esther 1–5; Zechariah 10–14; Revelation 15–18

Purim is a holy day not specified in the law of Moses.  Like Hanukah is a holy day celebrating a later event during the Maccabean Revolt, Purim celebrates the Jews deliverance from genocide.  Both of these traditions shows that Judaism is a living faith with newer traditions marking God's actions among them.  Just because the last books of the Old Testament were written in the BC era, doesn't mean God is done working through His chosen people.  God is working on all people all the time to bring them to saving knowledge of Himself.

The story behind Purim may find it's genesis with an age old folly of King Saul's.  King Saul defeated the Amalekites who were to be utterly destroyed per the Lord's command when they attacked the Israelites wandering tin the wilderness (Ex. 17:14-16).  During Saul's reign as king of Israel, he defeated the Amalekites but let their king Agag live.  The prophet Samuel scolded Saul and reported that he lost the kingdom of this infraction (1 Sam. 15:8-33).  Samuel slew King Agag of the Amalekites.

Apparently some of his descendants survived.  In Susa, one of the four capital cities for the Persian empire, King Xerxes  (known also as Ahsuerus reigning 486-465 BC) held a 6 month long celebration of his great city and great power and wealth.  Nobles and officials from all over the empire attended.  In a drunken state the king wanted to show off his beautiful Queen Vashti along with all his other possessions.  Vashti refused to be paraded around like another treasure.  So the king in his rafe consulted his advisors and they advised that her insolence be met with defrock and banishment from the king's presence. For they feared other women would get the idea they could rebel against their husbands' authority.  The law went out to all the empire "so all women will honor their husbands, from the least to the greatest... every man should be master of his own house (Est. 1:20, 22b)."


King Xerxes searched for a new queen (Cinderella?) by having all the beautiful maidens in the land brought to the palace and prepared for a night with him.  It was a year long preparation of oil and perfume beauty treatments. The luxury is astonishing! These concubines were prepared for a year to spend one night with the king of Persia in his bedroom.  Only if he called for them by name did they ever see him again! 


Esther is the cousin of Mordecai, a descendant of Kish of Benjamin, the father of King Saul.  Mordecai had taken legal guardianship of Esther when her parents both died.  She was taken to the King's palace and prepared with the other beauties.  But Esther had spiritual qualities, too.  She carried "hesed" before the man in charge of the harem. She showed faithful love or covenantal faithfulness.  In other words she had the qualities of a  daughter of Zion, a child of Yahweh because she walked in His right ways.  She was favored by the eunuch in charge.  


Her exaltation reminds me of Joseph's in Egypt.  He too became well respected for God was with him even though he was only a Hebrew slave. He became the savior of Egypt and the whole region, including his own family, Jacob and sons.  Esther too is recognized as no ordinary woman.  King Xerxes chooses Esther to be his new queen.


But Xerxes had a man he also exalted, Haman the Agagite, a descendant of King Agag of the Amalekites.  Oops!  Saul botched it.  The king order everyone to bow and give homage when he passed by, but Mordecai refused because he was a Jew.  He is a righteous man who even warned the king of an assassination plot (Est.2:21-23). 


The book of Esther never mentions God, but this refusal to bow before Haman is God-obedience.  Just as Esther has the qualities of faithful love because she is a covenant keeper, Mordecai too will not bow before any other than Yahweh.  His people are in exile in Persia because  they had rebelled and worshipped before idols.  One must read between the lines in order to gather the rich inferences.


Haman convinces Xerxes to kill all the Jews because "their laws are different from everyone else's, so that they defy the king's laws. It is not in the king's best interest to tolerate them Est. 3:8b)." The decree went out on the 13th of the first month, the night before the Passover lambs are slaughtered.  All Jews were to be killed and plundered throughout the empire on the 13th of the 12th month, a year away. 


Through Mordecai's urging Esther decides to risk her life and approach the king uninvited.  The sentence for such an act is death unless the king chooses to show mercy by extending his golden scepter (Est. 4:11).  Xerxes does show her kind welcome, accepting her invitation to dine together along with Haman.  Ii is a delightful time.  The king is so pleased with her her offers to grant her anything she wants, even up to half of his kingdom.  King Herod promised the same to the dancing daughter of his queen Herodias (Mk. 6:22-23).
Folly runs in the hearts of drunk powerful men.


Haman is so pleased by his intimate dinner with the king and queen that he struts from the palace only to find Mordecai sitting in sackcloth.  Mordecai does not rise or tremble or show any homage to Haman at all.  HE is enraged and complains to his wife and friends about how blessed his is with the kings favor, riches and authority and eve the queen loves him.  But none of this satisfies him because Mordecai will not bow before him (Est. 5:11-13).


Xerxes seems too busy with Haman to really see what is happening.  They sit down and drink wine together whole the rest of the city is in confusion of over the law to kill all the Jews (Est. 3:15)!  But Mordecai is certain that God will hear their prayers and see their humility before Him in sackcloth.  He advises Esther who hesitates to approach the powerful King Xerxes uninvited.  


"If you keep silent at this time, liberation and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father's house will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this (Est. 4:14)."


Who knows indeed!

Zechariah is one in the know.  As a prophet he sees the future of Jerusalem and her enemies.  Jerusalem will be restored, the people gathered from the nations where God scattered them.  Jerusalem will be great again and kings will come from them. Their enemies will not be able to withstand restored Jerusalem (Zch. 12:2-9). The people will be like David and the house of David will be like God (Zch. 12:8)!

"Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the house of David and the residents of Jerusalem, and they will look at Me whom they pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child and weep bitterly for Him as one weeps for a firstborn (Zch. 12:10)."

The Israelites will grieve because of how their unfaithfulness has pierced God and hurt Him deeply in His emotions.  This very passage was later seen by the apostles as a prophecy describing the crucifixion of Jesus.

Zechariah speaks of a day when all the nations will come out against Jerusalem and He will strike them down (Zch. 14:1).  The Lord will appear standing on the Mount of Olives (Zch. 14:14).  Jerusalem's survivors will flee through a new valley created by the Lord for their escape from the invading armies. And God strikes the armies down with a flesh rotting plague.  Then Jerusalem is restored and temple worship resumes and even the pagan nations come and celebrate the festival of booths, the ingathering of the harvest (Zch. 14:16).  That festival marks the end of the harvest, a time to celebrate God's provision that season and His faithfulness to Israel in the wilderness wandering years under Moses.

John the Revelator uses Zechariah's great day of the Lord and the showdown against the armies gathered against Jerusalem in his Armageddon.  He represents the battle as the great showdown between God and the demonic forces possessing the kings of the earth (Rev. 16:13-16).

"Use your sickle and reap, for the time to reap has come, since the harvest of the earth is ripe... the angel swung his sickle toward earth and gathered the grapes from earth's vineyard, and he threw them into the great winepress of God's wrath (Rev. 14:15b, 19)." 

Armegeddon is a word dreived from Har Megiddo which is the fortress city on the hill of Megiddo over looking the Jezreel Valley in Gaililee (Northern Israel).  This is where many battles occurred in the days of Israel's judges and kings. According to John, this is where the last battle will occur.  The great whore of Babylon falls, code for "Rome will fall."

It's sad, but this Armegeddon imagery has gotten completely out of hand by Christian interpreters trying to connect the dots between the predicted destruction of the enemies of God and the great city which filled with luxuries and adulteries to events in our future.  They make predictions of when Jesus is coming back to strike the final blow.  They are always wrong.  Even Jesus said He did not know the day or hour.  it is not our business to predict doomsday.  This revelation was never meant for that.  It is our job to witness to hope in Christ.

The rhetoric of John is prophetic and a style used to disguise the plain meaning from state officials  who are oppressing the church.  John is on Patmos as an exile, banished there for preaching the gospel.  His letter to the seven churches was cloaked in imagery. The plain meaning is to encourage the church to remain faithful to the end. If death comes during this tribulation, they should know they will be radiantly blessed.  So hang in there! Trust that God will win the day!  Trust that the people of God will be restored even beyond the grave.

Mordecai trusted that the Jews would be delivered even if Esther chose not to plead mercy before King Xerxes.  Christians under persecution and oppression should also trust.

Even when it seems hopeless we are to choose hope in God's ultimate victory.  That is the enduring message of the Apocalypse (the revelation) of John.  Zechariah contains this hope. John presents this hope again.

So instead of trying to figure out when Jesus is coming back and when the world as we know it is going to end, we should be inspiring hope in others and lifting them to trust in the One we pierced by our transgressions, The Lamb, Jesus Christ who saves!

O Lamb of God, I am not worthy to be protected by Your name, washed clean of the stain of my sins by Your blood, or strengthened by Your grace.  I humbly accept the words of the gospel that eternal life is a free gift we receive through hope in You.  Help You church to lead other to call upon the Name of the Lord Jesus and be saved.  And forgive us when we get wrapped up in superstitious fears and arrogantly flaunt Your hope filled Word to do harm to others.  Amen