Esther                                                                        9/27/09

            Settle back.  Get comfortable.  Today I’m going to tell you a story.  For some of you, the story is an old and familiar one.  For some of you it will be brand new.  It has everything a good story should have:  A solid, good, and faithful man named Mordecai; an evil villain – Haman; and a beautiful heroin named Esther who risks her very life to save her people. 

            Ready?  Let’s go. 

            Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a king, Xerxes by name, who wanted to find a new wife to be queen.  So he set out to hold a beauty contest and women from all over the country came in the hopes that they would be the chosen one.

            At the time, Mordecai, a faithful Jew was raising his cousin Esther, and she was exceedingly beautiful, so Mordecai entered her into the contest as well, but, he told her, do not tell anyone you are a Jew. 

            Esther went to the palace and for twelve months she was pampered and taught how to put on make-up and fed a special diet so she would be beautiful for the king.  Well, to no one’s surprise the king chose Esther as the winner of the contest and she became the queen.

            Things went along very well until one day Mordecai learned of a plot to kill the king.  He told Esther to run and tell the king what was afoot and so she did.  The king killed the traitors and life went back to normal.

            Enter Haman.  Haman was a very vain and cruel man who wanted everyone to bow down to him and say how wonderful he was, but Mordecai refused to do it.  Well, Haman was furious --- so furious that he decided to kill not only Mordecai, but every Jew in the country too. 

            Haman went to the king to seek permission for his massacre and he told the king he would even pay for it!  So the king agreed and sent out a royal decree that no one could change --- not even him --- that every Jew --- every man, woman, and child --- should be killed on the 13^th day of the 12^th month.

            Well, you can imagine the reaction of the Jews to this news!  Everyone was tearing at their clothes and wailing in the streets.  It was so bad even Esther heard about it in the palace, so she sent comforting words --- and a set of clothes --- to Mordecai. 

            “You’ve got to do something,” he said.  “Go to the king and plead for our lives.”  “But,” Esther replied, “if I go to the king without him asking for me, I will die unless he holds out his golden scepter.”  “You must go,” said Mordecai, “Who knows, you may have been made the queen for just such a moment as this.” 

            So Esther went.  She knelt down as low as she could go, and with fear and trembling, entered the king’s court room.  Everyone gasped at Esther’s appearance.  Didn’t she know the king could have her killed?  Esther held her breath and finally the king raised his golden scepter --- the scepter that would save her – because she was so beautiful. 

            “Ask me for anything and I will give it to you,” he said.  And what did Esther ask for?  She asked for the king and for Haman to come to her house for dinner.  Everyone was astonished that she would risk her life for a dinner invitation!

            Well, the king and Haman went to eat with Esther and again, the king said, “Ask me for anything and it will be yours.”  And what did Esther ask for this time?  You got it.  She asked them to come to dinner again. 

            By this time, Haman was bursting with pride.  He was the only man in the kingdom who got invited to eat with Esther besides the king.  This made him one of the most important people in the kingdom!  But just as he was bragging about how wonderful and important he was, he happened to pass by Mordecai who refused once more to bow before him.

            Haman was so upset he decided to build a tall scaffold from which to hang Mordecai so everyone could see him die.

            That night, the king had insomnia, so he asked his butler to read to him from the history book in the hopes that that would put him to sleep.  (I’ll read the book of Numbers for the same reason.) 

            As the butler was reading, what story came up?  Well, the one about Mordecai saving the king’s life from the traitors of course.  And so the next day the king went to Haman and asked, “What should I do to reward a good and faithful servant?” 

            Haman thought the king was talking about him so he said, “You should dress him up in the very best clothes, put him on the very best horse and have the most important man in the kingdom ride him around showing everyone how wonderful he is.”

            “Done,” said the king.  “Go get Mordecai, and do exactly what you said, and I want you to be the one who leads him around the town.”

            Haman was mortified, but he had no choice but to do what the king wanted.  The only thing he could think of as he led Mordecai around was how he was going to kill this Jew in just a few days. 

            That night, he went with the king to Esther’s for their last dinner together.  One more time the king asked Esther what she wanted and promised her she could have anything her heart desired.

            “Give me my life and the life of my people,” she pleaded.  The king was astonished and asked what she was talking about.  It was then that Esther revealed that she too was a Jew and that Haman planned to put them all to death in just a few days. 

            The king was so furious that he stormed out of the room and Haman dropped to his knees to beg Esther for his life, for he could see the king was very, very angry.  Instead Esther said he should die instead of her cousin Mordecai and so it was.  Haman was hung for all to see on the gallows he had built for Mordecai. 

            But wait.  That’s not the end of the story.  There was still one problem left.  How was the king going to save the Jews from being killed?  He couldn’t stop the royal decree.  No one could.

            Finally, the king came up with a plan.  He would allow the Jews to defend themselves and kill their enemies.  So on the 13^th day of the 12^th month the Jews killed all of their enemies in the kingdom, every last one, and they decided that for ever after they would celebrate that day and remember how the beautiful queen Esther saved her people.   So even today on the festival of Purim, the story is told and the people boo and hiss every time Haman’s name is mentioned and shout hurrah each time they hear the name of Esther and Mordecai. 

            That’s the story.  So what’s the moral?  Because all good stories have a moral. 

            One moral is that it’s not bad to be a beauty queen.  Remember what Mordecai said to Queen Esther?   “Who knows, he said, “you may have been made the queen for just such a moment as this.” 

            God uses whatever talent and gift we have to achieve his purpose, and no talent, no gift, is so small or seems so unlikely that it cannot be used. 

Esther’s claim to fame was her beauty and the fact that she truly was a beauty queen.  Now, we might look down on the beauty queens of the world and say women and small girls shouldn’t aspire to such things, but God says, “No.  Even beauty queens have a special role to play --- and you do too.” 

So whether you’re beautiful and a genius, homely or a dunce, God sees you as something special and can and does want to use you.   The end.