Esther 2 – Wrong Place at the Right Time

Esther 2 – Wrong Place at the Right Time

A great subplot to the story of Esther and Mordecai was….why were Jews in Susa in the first place? Susa was a town in the Persian Empire (modern day Iran) When the Babylonian captivity ended years earlier….(probably 2-3 generations) the Jews were freed from captivity, to go home to Israel. Free to return to the place of their spiritual heritage yet some chose to stay. Why?

Probably some of the same reasons we would choose to stay. They had grown comfortable, they had climbed the corporate ladder (Mordecai was a Jew in the citadel…a government official), their family had attained status there. So you can’t really blame them…..but it’s like biting the hand that feeds you….God the author of life, giver of all good things, the deliverer of your very people……orchestrates a plan to free you from the bondage of slavery and tyranny, and deliver you to “The Promised Land”….yet they remained. They (those that remained) thumbed their nose at God….and basically said…”yeah, I know you have your plans…and they are good, but I’m fine where I am at.”

I think about addictions, how some people are given all the opportunity in the world to free themselves from the very thing that will kill them, yet when given the opportunity of rehab or support or accountability…they choose to remain an addict. ‘Giving the bird’ to family and friends that care about you…and don’t want to see you die.

So just so we know…Esther being “chosen” was really God’s hand in a mess. Xerxes was harvesting virgins to have sex with and dispose of….it just so happened that Esther found favor. This is why we pray for favor at ANC….because as jacked up as we make it sometimes….if we remain in God’s favor, he can choose to bring glory to himself through it. (Another practice of the Babylonian Empire was harvesting young men, and making them Eunuchs. Xerxes, it is written, would harvest up to 500 men and women per year.)

I know none of us has been plucked from our families to become servants in an evil empire….but we do become enslaved by our work, our hobbies, our dreams, addictions or agendas…and maybe we find ourselves far from God, or not exactly in a God-honoring position….. But it’s not unthinkable that God won’t choose to use us……and we may have been born, been in the position we are in, for such a time as this!