Sermon Transcript
That same day, King Xerxes gave Esther the estate of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. And Mordecai came into the presence of the king, for Esther had told how he was related to her. The king took off his signet ring, which he had reclaimed from Haman, and presented it to Mordecai. And Esther appointed him over Haman’s estate. State.
Esther again pleaded with the king, falling at his feet and weeping. She begged him to put an end to the evil plan of Haman the Agagite. If it pleases the king, she said, and if he regards me with favor and thinks it the right thing to do, and if he is pleased with me, let an order be written overruling the dispatches that Haman devised and wrote to destroy the Jews. Jews in all the king’s provinces. For how can I bear to see disaster fall on my people?
How can I bear to see the destruction of my family? King Xerxes replied to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, because Haman attacked the Jews, I have given his estate to Esther, and they have impaled him on the pole he set up. Now write another decree in the king’s name in behalf of the Jews as seems best to you, and seal it with the king’s signet ring, for no document written in the king’s name and sealed with his ring can be revoked. At once the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out all Mordecai’s orders to the Jews and to the satraps, governors, and nobles of the 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush.
These orders were written in the script of each province and the language of each people, and also to the Jews in their own script and language. Mordecai wrote in the name of King Xerxes, sealed the dispatches with the king’s signet ring, and sent them by mounted couriers who rode fast horses especially bred for the king. The king’s edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves, to destroy, kill, and annihilate the armed men of any nationality or province who might attack them and their women and children, and to plunder the property of their enemies. The day appointed for the Jews to do this in all the provinces of King Xerxes was the day of the 12th month, the month of Adar. When Mordecai left the king’s presence, he was wearing royal garments of blue and white, a large crown of gold, and a purple robe of fine linen.
And the city of Susa held a joyous celebration. For the Jews, it was a time of happiness and joy and gladness and honor. In every province, in every city to which the edict of the king came, came, there was joy and gladness amongst the Jews, with feasting and celebrating. And many people of other nationalities became Jews, because fear of the Jews had seized them.
Thanks, Carrie.
We are coming near the end of our study of the book of Esther. Next week will be the final conclusion when we will see everything wrapped up, and then after that, as a church, we start summer. If you haven’t heard, we have a unique teaching series planned for the summer where each week we will hear from one of our ministry leaders part of their faith journey. We’ll hear from each one of our elders and a few of our staff, so if there’s a few of them that you don’t feel like you know very well, it’s a great opportunity to get a small window into their lives. But even more important than that, we hope our summer series shows how God continues to bring all different kinds of people to himself, because none of our leaders have the exact same story.
Some found faith early, some not so early. They have different personalities, they work in different professions, but all of them in different ways discovered that God is real, and all of them have specific circumstances in which God made all the difference. That series begins June 2nd, and then we’ll have a big all-church lunch afterwards to kick off summer, so be sure to be here and plan to stay late on the 2nd. But for today and next week we are still in Esther. Last week we saw God begin to reverse all the evil and corruption that had happened up to that point in the book of Esther.
We saw the demise of Haman, the villain. And if you’ve been with, with us each week, you are already well acquainted with Haman. But for those of you who may be popping into this series for the first time, you kind of walked in toward the end of the movie, so let me catch you up. Haman, the villain, was one of the top officials in the ancient kingdom of Persia, which was ruled by King Xerxes. And Haman hates all the Israelites living in Persia, primarily because he has a personal conflict with one Israelite named Mordecai.
So Haman uses his influence as a top official to get King Xerxes to issue a decree that all the Israelites, down to every single man, woman, and child, will be killed on a certain date out in the future, the 13th day of the 12th month, the month of Adar. That day will become important later. The decree says on that day all of them will be killed, all of their property and possessions can be looted, And the way the legislative system in Persia worked was that once the king issued a decree, sealed it with its ring, with his ring, it could not be revoked. So the Israelites face an irrevocable genocide plotted by Haman. Additionally, Haman hates Mordecai in particular so much he doesn’t want to wait for Mordecai to be killed with all the other Israelites.
He wants Mordecai killed killed now in a very public, humiliating, dehumanizing way. So Haman sets up a gallows which we believe is similar to crucifixion because crucifixion originated around this time in Persia and Haman plans to impale, crucify Mordecai on the gallows that he set up. Lots of evil plotted by Haman, that’s why we call him the villain and it looked like nothing would be able to stop stop him. But last week we saw the tide turn against him. The destruction Haman plotted came back down on him because in a very visible sense he reaped what he sowed.
It started to unravel on him when the queen, Esther, who was of Jewish descent, which he didn’t know, no one knew the queen was Jewish, but when she finally reveals her heritage and pleads to the king for her life and the life of her people people. At that moment, Haman knows, I’m done for. And King Xerxes responds by crucifying Haman on the very gallows that Haman set up to crucify Mordecai. So our villain has been removed from the story, which is a type of progress, I guess. It would have been better if Haman could have been redeemed instead of executed.
We talked about that last week. But nonetheless, at least now Haman can’t cause any more destruction. But that doesn’t actually solve everything because we still have this giant problem looming out in the future. One problem was solved, one evil was stopped, Mordecai wasn’t executed, great! But really all that accomplished, all that accomplished that Mordecai escaped one calamity is he’s going to be caught in another one?
Because Mordecai and Esther and all the Israelites still face total extermination. The decree to kill all of them still exists. It’ll happen on the 13th day of the 12th month and it still can’t be revoked.
So, is God going to reverse that evil as well? That’s where we pick up our story for today. We’re looking at Esther chapter 8 where we will find that yes, God will save His people from genocide, but He’s actually going to do even more more than that. In Esther chapter 8, we will in fact see 3 reversals: a reversal of statuses, a reversal of decrees, and a reversal of reactions, meaning emotions or moods. The whole feeling of the story flips 180 degrees.
So statuses, decrees, and reactions are all reversed, and we’ll look at those one at a time. As we we will tie each one of those to the larger story of Scripture to show God doesn’t only bring these reversals about in Esther, he brings them about for each one of us in Christ. In other words, the reversals we see in Esther are characteristic of what God always does. It’s one of the reasons the Bible is amazing in my eyes, one of the reasons you may learn to trust Scripture as God’s inspired word if you don’t do that already because somehow one part of the Bible tells the story of the entire Bible even though it was written by an unknown number of people most of whom didn’t know each other, some of whom lived thousands of years apart but still somehow God embeds the bigger story in each one of the smaller stories. It’s what we try to show you each week with any text that we’re studying and we will certainly see it today.
So let’s get started. First, the reversal of statuses. Mordecai and Haman essentially exchange statuses. At the beginning of Esther, Mordecai has no special standing in the kingdom. The king certainly doesn’t know who he is.
Even though Mordecai saved the king’s life at one point, he wasn’t recognized for it until years later when we start last week, he hadn’t been recognized at all. And then worse, of course, Mordecai was basically sentenced to death on the gallows when Haman plotted to kill him. I mean, last week heading into chapters 6 and 7, Mordecai’s status was forgotten and condemned.
But then we saw him begin to rise. And here today we see him rise even more so. He moves from forgotten and condemned to free from condemnation, honored and elevated to heights that he would not have been able to imagine or plan or conceive because he and Haman essentially exchange places and then even more so. Instead of Mordecai being crucified, Haman is. Haman is condemned.
In return, Mordecai receives Haman’s full status and even more. Xerxes gave Haman’s status to Esther, which she puts Mordecai in charge of. Then the king gives Mordecai, verse 15, royal garments of blue and white, a large crown of gold, and a purple robe of fine linen. Haman never had any of those things. He didn’t get the robe or the crown, right?
So Mordecai is elevated even higher than Haman was. And perhaps most notably, Incredibly, King Xerxes takes his signet ring and gives it to Mordecai. This is the ring of power, so to speak, the one ring to rule them all, because any document that is sealed with the imprint of this ring carries the authority of the king and it cannot be revoked. This is the very same ring that sealed the decree to exterminate all the Israelites, and now an Israelite is wearing it. It’s the kind of thing that almost makes you laugh in disbelief.
It’s the kind of thing Mordecai would never have been able to imagine could happen. It is such a dramatic reversal, even reading it, it’s hard to fathom, moving from forgotten and condemned to being second in command in the kingdom without even trying. He didn’t have a career plan. Mordecai didn’t do anything to accomplish this, it just fell in his lap. It’s hard to believe, but that’s how God often works.
In fact, that’s how redemption always works. When God redeems, it is excessive, it is over the top, it is beyond our wildest hopes, and it is substitutionary. One in place of the other. What happens with Mordecai and Haman is a shadow of what happens with us and Christ. It is not a one-to-one comparison, right?
If you’re using Mordecai and Haman as a metaphor for us and Christ, it is far from a perfect metaphor, but it is a shadow because Mordecai received Haman’s status, way, way at the top. Just as we received Christ’s status. And as Haman is crucified in Mordecai’s place, taking Mordecai’s sentence of death down there way at the bottom, so Jesus is crucified in our place, taking our sentence of death. As Mordecai and Haman were substituted for each other, so we are substituted with Christ. That’s a metaphor.
Now the reason it’s not a perfect comparison, of course, is because Haman is a horrible villain, right? And Christ is the unparalleled hero. And Haman is guilty and dies for his own crimes, and Christ is innocent and dies for our crimes, right? That’s different. Haman and Jesus are wildly not the same.
But in terms— if we were only trying to depict someone with high status being crucified and humiliated and place of someone else with low status and the person with the low status being elevated to unimaginable heights, if that’s all we’re trying to depict, that is what happens with us in Christ because God gives us the robe and the ring and the crown, so to speak. We rise to the highest possible status in his kingdom beyond our ability to comprehend, Romans 8, we are co-heirs with Christ. Ephesians 2, we are seated in the heavenly realms. 1 Corinthians 2, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor anyone imagined what God has prepared for us. We cannot completely fathom what it means for us to have the full status of Christ, for us to have everything that Christ deserves, to have all the favor he deserves, all the acceptance he deserves, for us to have that while he, exchanging with us, substituting with us, he takes the sentence of death that we deserve.
He was rejected so we could be accepted. He was crucified so we could have life. He was humiliated, shamed on the cross so that we could be honored honored as royalty, basically. It’s hard to absorb fully what he did for us, but Mordecai’s redemption gives us some inkling of what it’s like for us to have the status of Christ. That’s one reversal, reversal of statuses.
Second reversal, a reversal of decrees. Irrevocable death to irrevocable life. As we said, up to this point in the story, the biggest problem has yet to be solved. Mordecai was spared from the gallows, great. Mordecai was given Haman’s status, great.
But even if he has the estate and the robe and the ring and the crown, it’s not going to mean a whole lot if he dies in the genocide in a few months. The biggest problem hasn’t been solved. Yet. It’s still looming out there in their future, hanging over everything. So how can that be reversed?
Because as we’ve said all along, Xerxes, like the Persian kings before him, they believed if they made a decree, it was like the Word of God. It was true for all time. It can’t be revoked. There’s no way to reverse it. And Xerxes had issued the decree to rob, kill, and annihilate all the Jews.
He sealed it with his ring. It was sent out to every corner of the kingdom in every language, 13th day of the 12th month, this is going down. It went out with the force of thus saith the Lord. So at least in Xerxes’ mind, he can’t pull that back. He can’t revoke it.
It’s already out there. It went public. He sealed it with his ring. No reversal possible. That’s what Xerxes believes.
Now, from my perspective, I’m like, why can’t he change it? So what? So every other king before him thought whatever he said couldn’t be revoked. Who cares? It doesn’t mean Xerxes needs to think that too, right?
I mean, if there’s a law that says laws can’t be revoked, just change that law. Like, aren’t you supposed to be the supreme ruler? What’s the problem, Xerxes? It’s like the Disney movie Aladdin, right? There had always been this rule that Princess Jasmine had to marry a prince, which means she can’t marry Aladdin because Aladdin’s not a prince.
And so most of the movie they’re trying to make Aladdin a prince so that he can marry Jasmine, but that doesn’t work out. Then everyone’s bummed because Jasmine Jasmine will never be able to marry Aladdin. But then her dad, the Sultan, at least in the animated version, the live-action was different, the Sultan, the guy in charge, her dad realizes, hey, I’m in charge, I can do whatever I want. So he changes the rule, he says from now on Jasmine doesn’t need to marry a prince, she can marry whomever she pleases. She picks Aladdin, everyone lives happily ever after.
After, right? And as you watch the movie you think like, wow, what if the Sultan realized that at the beginning? This could have saved a whole lot of trouble. But then we wouldn’t get all the songs and stuff. Like, why couldn’t Xerxes do that?
Couldn’t he just change the law that says you can’t change the law? Like, why not, Xerxes? It’s basically what Esther asks, verse 5. She says, please issue another decree overruling the one that went out before. Send something out that pulls that decree back.
It’s bold on her part to ask for that. It’s unprecedentedly bold because no one had ever dared tell this king no to one of his requests. The one woman who did got deposed, so no one ever tells him no, let alone tell him that he’s done something wrong. But Esther does it here. She’s worked her way up to this point.
She’s been patient. But she finally says it, overrule what you said before. She tells the guy who literally thinks he can’t be wrong that he’s wrong. And kind of amazingly, right, given Xerxes’ past history, everything we know about him from earlier in the narrative, Xerxes against all odds maybe receives what she has to say. He doesn’t argue with her.
He doesn’t say, how dare you ask? He doesn’t depose her like he did with a former queen. He listens to her intently. But at the same time, he still doesn’t believe he can change what was written before. In his mind, at least, he can’t cancel the first decree.
But what he can do, and what he does do, is issue another decree that counteracts the first decree and in that way you could say overrules it. The first decree was one of death, kill all the Israelites on this day, we can’t revoke that. The second decree was one of life, the Israelites can defend themselves on the same day. So death is still allowed to come, that’s not changing, but also Israelites, you can find however many friends you Right? Gather all the swords, assemble the battle camels, and if someone tries to rob you or annihilate you, you can fight back.
You might live. The second one counteracts the first one. It doesn’t cancel it, but in a way it overrules it, which means Xerxes comes pretty close to admitting that he was wrong. He does all that he believes that he can do to change what was said earlier. And is that personal growth on his part?
Is he starting to realize, you know, flippantly issuing all these decrees can damage real lives of real people who matter? Is he growing? Hey, let’s hope so, maybe. But regardless, Xerxes gives the Israelites a chance. He gives them a great chance.
In fact, his second decree almost guarantees their survival. Rival. Because if you remember from earlier in our series, it seems the majority of the people in the city of Susa in Persia love the Israelites being there. The Israelites have enemies for sure, but most of the people in the kingdom are on their side. So we would anticipate that when the Israelites go out to find friends to help defend them, when they ask their neighbor for the battle camel, their neighbor will not only can you borrow it, but I will fight with you.
We anticipate that they would have more friends to help protect them than enemies who want to destroy them. And as you’ll see next week, that is in fact true. It works. They live.
The second decree really did give life, even though the first decree of death wasn’t really canceled. Canceled. It’s just the second decree was more powerful. And again, that’s a shadow. It’s a picture of what God did for us in Christ because we also, all of us, are under a decree of death going back to our earliest ancestors who chose to walk away from God, the source of life, right?
Before they walked away from the source of life, they lived in perfect harmony with God the garden in paradise, but then they forsook God. They forsook life, and if you forsake the source of life, what else is there for you but death? And God warned them. God told them. It was like a decree.
The day you eat of the tree, you will surely die. That’s like saying, if you jump in the river, you’re going to get wet. If you walk away from life, Where are you then, death? And that’s what they did. They walked away from the source of life and death entered the human story.
We are still under that decree of death. We can’t get out from under it. It is for real irrevocable.
It is the giant problem out in our future. Just as Esther and Mordecai still had a giant problem looming out in their future that couldn’t simply be taken away away. We have a giant problem out in our future. We all have to face our mortality at some point. It is the problem we cannot solve.
No matter our medical advances, no matter if we won the genetic lottery and we have good health till we’re 100, it’s still out there. And actually, it doesn’t only affect us. All of creation, in fact, is under a decree of death. There will eventually be the energy death of the universe. It’s irrevocable.
But God issued another decree, a decree of life. Just as the decree of life triumphed over death in Esther, so God’s decree of life triumphs over death for us because Jesus didn’t stay dead after being on the cross. He rose from the grave. Grave. Death could not hold him.
Life won. Life was victorious. And God said his new decree is all of us who belong to Christ will similarly rise. We still experience the first decree. It’s still out there.
It can’t be revoked. But we will also experience the second decree that is more powerful, that overrules the first one, and in a way nullifies it. Death will not hold us. So our biggest problem has been solved by a new decree being issued. That’s the second reversal, death to life.
Now finally, the third reversal, a reversal of reactions, weeping to rejoicing. If you remember from earlier in Esther when the first decree was written in every language of sealed with the king’s ring, sent throughout the entire kingdom, people reacted to the first decree with loud wailing. Loud wailing. I’ve never seen any other kind of wailing besides loud. I’ve never seen silent wailing, for instance.
But just in case that wasn’t obvious for all of us, the author wants to specify the wailing that happened with the first decree was the loud kind. There was weeping, mourning, right? People were tearing their clothes. They were aghast that all the Israelites were going to be killed. Even the people who weren’t Israelites themselves, who weren’t going to be robbed and annihilated, they were even bewildered.
They shared the shock of the Israelites, as much like how we mourn when we see tragedies in our world even if they aren’t happening to us, right? We watch the news and our hearts break over suffering, violence, injustice, right? We weep, we mourn, we may even wail. That’s how nearly everyone reacted to the first decree. So not surprisingly, when the second decree is issued, again in every language, again sealed with the king’s ring, again sent throughout the entire kingdom, just like the first one, right?
It’s written as a perfect parallel on purpose. The second decree that gave life, when the second decree that gave life went out, the reaction was totally opposite from the first decree. Starting in verse 15 of our text today, the city of Susa, that means the non-Jewish people, instead of being bewildered like they were before, now they had a joyous celebration. And for the Jews, it was a time not of weeping, wailing, and mourning, mourning, but a time of happiness and joy and gladness and honor. Verse 17, in every province and in every city to which the edict of the king came, there was joy and gladness among the Jews, with feasting and celebrating.
Their weeping turned to rejoicing, though their sorrow had lasted for more than a night. Their joy came in this morning. Every tear from every eye was wiped away and turned to rich laughter. That’s their story. And as you likely already know, that’s our story because once again that’s a picture of what God does for us in Christ.
He moves us from weeping to rejoicing. When we encounter sorrows of this world and especially when we encounter death, we mourn and we should. It’s appropriate to grieve when we lose someone, for instance, or when or when our own life is slipping away. It is a true loss. There is real anguish.
And as a church, we would never tell you that you shouldn’t grieve. Of course, that’s how we would react. Even Jesus reacted to death that way. Jesus wept. Shortest verse in the Bible, right?
Jesus wept, period. He did that when his friend Lazarus died. Jesus broke down. He loud wailed. That’s the meaning of that Greek word in the shortest verse of the Bible.
He ugly cried. He was gasping for air. There’s snot everywhere. It was a spectacle when his friend died. So Jesus certainly didn’t tell anyone they shouldn’t be grieving at the funeral, for instance.
Instead, he was in the front car of the wailing train. He grieved most excessively out of every single person there, and the people standing there said, wow, Jesus must have really loved this guy because of how visible his sorrow is. The decree of death does bring terrible pain, and it is appropriate to say it is painful. It is awful. It’s not what we are made for.
It’s not the way things are supposed to be. Death in particular is an interruption of how God originally made the world. Just like the decree of death in Esther was an interruption of normally scheduled life, it was a diversion from what ought to be in the Persian kingdom, so is the decree of death that we face. But it is also not the final word, just like in Esther. The other decree, the decree of life, is laid on top of the decree of death and it flips everything, including their emotions, including their mood, their reaction.
They went from weeping to rejoicing on the same day. It’s not a coincidence that in Esther both decrees were scheduled to activate on the same day. I told you that date was going to be important. Both decrees go live on the 13th day of the 12th month, the month of Adar. Death and life happen simultaneously.
The day of their darkest gloom turned into their day of greatest joy, and that is not a coincidence. Because that’s us, that will be us. The day of our death will be the day of our fullest life, the day of our most mourning, the day of our deepest darkness, as tragic as it is and as much as it needs to be grieved, it will flip and we will see the glory of the Lord and we will be in his presence and we will explode with delight and we will feast and we will laugh with rich laughter. And then it’ll just get better from there. Because as God turns our death into life, he will similarly turn the decay of the universe into new life.
He will make a new heavens and a new earth where there will never again be death or mourning or crying or pain. The former order of things from this world world will totally pass away, and we will live together with each other, with all the redeemed. We will be with one another, and we will be with our Creator forever and ever without another interruption, without another diversion, as He originally made it to be. As God restored everything that was broken in Esther, He will restore everything that is broken in our world. That day is coming.
That day is your future, Christian, and that’s what gives us immense hope even on our darkest days. Let’s pray together. Father, we thank you that you are a God of restoration, a God of redemption, We pray, we thank you, Lord, that we have favor and acceptance beyond our wildest dreams, that you have raised us into the heavenlies with Christ, and you did so by substituting Jesus in our place. We thank you for Jesus who volunteered for that role and for the joy of the cross, or for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, Lord. We thank you that he finds us— finds it joyful to switch places with us.
Lord, we pray that our trust in him would increase, that we could walk through life with hope, walk through life enjoying the status and the favor that you have given us, Lord. I pray that you always turn our weeping to rejoicing as you promised you would. We pray those things in Jesus’ name, amen.
