Sermon Transcript
Our scripture reading comes from the book of Esther, chapters 6 and 7.
That night the king could not sleep, so he ordered the record of his reign to be brought in and read to him. It was found there, it was found recorded there that Mordecai had exposed Biggnatha and Teresh, 2 of the king’s officers who had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. What honor and recognition has Mordecai received for this? the king asked. Nothing has been done for him, his attendants answered.
Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the palace to speak to the king about impaling Mordecai on the pole that he had set up for him. Bring him in, the king ordered. When Haman entered, the king asked him, what should be done for the man the king delights to honor? Now Haman thought to himself, who is there that the king would rather honor honor than me? So he answered the king, have them bring a royal robe the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden.
Let them robe the man and lead him on his horse through the city streets, proclaiming before him, this is what is done for the man the king delights to honor. Go at once, the king commanded to Haman. Get the robe and the horse and do just as you have suggested, for Mordcai the Jew. Do not neglect anything you have recommended. So Haman got the robe and the horse.
He robed Mordcai and led him on horseback through the city streets, proclaiming before him, this is what is done for the man the king delights to honor. Afterward, Mordcai returned to the king’s gate, but Haman rushed home with his head covered in grief and told Zeresh, his wife, and all his friends everything that had happened to him. His advisors and his wife Zeresh said to to him, since Mordecai, whom you have— whom your downfall has started, is of Jewish origin, you cannot stand against him. You will surely come to ruin. While they were still talking with him, the king’s eunuchs arrived and hurried Haman away to the banquet Esther had prepared.
So the king and Haman went to Queen Esther’s banquet, and as they were drinking wine on the second day, the king again asked Queen What is your petition? And it will be given to you. Then Queen Esther answered, if I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life. This is my petition. And spare my people.
This is my request. For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed, and annihilated. King Xerxes asked Queen Esther, who is he? Where is he, the man who dared to do such a thing? Esther said, an adversary and an enemy, this vile Haman.
Then Haman was terrified before the king and queen. The king got up in a rage, left his wine, and went out into the palace garden. But Haman, realizing that the king had already decided his fate, stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life. Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said, a pole reaching to the height of 50 cubits stands by Haman’s house. Haman had it set up for Mordecai, who, remember, he’s the one who spoke up to help the king.
The king said, impale him on it. So they impaled Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai. We’ve been working our way through the book of Esther, which is an ancient narrative tucked into the Old Testament of our Bibles, and it records events that took place mainly in King Xerxes’ palace, who was ruler of the Persian Empire in the 5th century BC. It’s— Esther is a dramatic story of a king and queens and power plays and enormous wealth and political corruption and even a full-fledged attempted genocide. The plot is full of surprises, twists and turns, good decisions mixed with terrible decisions.
There is bravery, courage, personal growth intertwined with racism, greed, hatred. There’s more drama in the book of Esther than you’ll find in any soap opera or any miniseries. And yet somehow in all that complicated swirl, God is also at work. He hasn’t abandoned the scene, much like he hasn’t abandoned us in our messy, complicated lives. God in Esther has been at work in the heart of the central figure, who is Esther.
God has been transforming Esther from a passive type of person who seems to get walked over all the time to an assertive, courageous woman who has great poise and a calm confidence. But that’s not all God has been up to. God has been at work behind the scenes putting different pieces in place place to save Esther’s people, the Israelites, from total extermination. The Israelites are facing this genocide because King Xerxes was persuaded by a man named Haman to issue a decree that all the Jews living in Persia could be robbed, looted, and killed. The reason Haman hates all Jewish people and wants to kill them is because he had a personal conflict with one Jewish guy named Mordecai.
Mordecai happens to be Esther’s cousin who adopted her and raised her, but Mordecai and Haman have a tiff which Haman blows way out of proportion. And since Haman is a top official in Persia under King Xerxes, he uses his influence to get the decree issued to kill kill all of Mordecai’s people. But unbeknownst to Haman and unbeknownst to anyone else, no one knows, the queen Esther is of course also Jewish. And while her position of queen doesn’t carry any official power, it does give her the possibility of access to talk with the king. So she goes to speak with the king on behalf of her people in an effort to save them and save herself, of course.
But that’s going to be a tricky conversation because this king, Xerxes, believes all his decrees are equal to the very word of God. Nothing he says can be revoked because if he said it, it was perfect the first time. He’s one of those kind of guys. And the order to exterminate all the Jews has already been written in every language and sent throughout the entire kingdom. It’s already gone public.
He’s already had the press conferences. So it’s going to be hard for Xerxes to pull that decree back even if he wanted to. But that’s the conversation Esther needs to have. So she thinks through how best to approach Xerxes, to tell him, Xerxes, you were wrong. Even though nobody’s allowed to tell you, you were wrong.
Wrong. That’s what I’m coming here to tell you. Now, she’s wise about it. Last week we saw she just invited Xerxes to dinner, prepared a banquet for him, and also invited Haman. She doesn’t just immediately accuse Haman or reveal how Haman’s plot will affect her personally.
She slow plays it. And then at the end of the banquet, she still doesn’t tell him what’s on her mind. Instead, she says, I’m going to prepare another banquet for both of you tomorrow. And there, at that second banquet, I’ll tell you what I want to discuss. Both men, Xerxes and Haman, agree to come to another feast the next day, neither of them having any idea that she’s Jewish or that she cares about this decree to kill all the Israelites.
Haman, in fact, oblivious that Esther’s really setting a trap for him— Haman feels honored that the queen has invited him to these feasts. He gets a private meal with the king and queen. Haman’s on top of the world. But on his way home from banquet number 1, Haman sees Mordecai and he’s enraged all over again. This is what we talked about last week.
All of his honor, all of his prestige, even this special invite can’t give him any satisfaction as long as Mordecai is still around. So Haman complains to his wife and friends about how much Mordecai bothers him and they tell him, here’s what you do about Mordecai. Don’t wait for him to be exterminated with all the other Israelites. That’s still months away. What you should do is kill him now.
In fact, build a gallows 75 feet high in your front yard and hang Mordecai on it in front of everyone so that everyone knows this is what happens if they mess with you. Haman loves the idea, builds the gallows. Now it’s unclear exactly what these gallows were, which is why some translations use the term pole where Haman hopes Mordecai will be impaled. Other translations describe it as a structure where someone would hang, but not hang like we would think, because when we hear hang we picture rope, and a noose. But Persia wasn’t really doing that.
In Persia, when they hung people on a pole or a structure, it was more like crucifixion. Crucifixion originated around this time in Persia. The Romans, of course, would later adopt it and, as they say, perfect it in order to maximize its pain, torture, and gruesome messaging. But Persia started started it. And like how the Romans would later use it, Persia used crucifixion primarily as a method of intimidation.
Crucifixion, even in its primitive form, was supposed to convey, this is what will happen if you try to challenge us. You will be publicly dehumanized, which is exactly why Haman built it. It’s exactly why his wife and friends told him to build it. That’s why it’s in his front yard. He wants it to be as public as possible.
He not only wants Mordecai killed, he wants everyone else to be afraid to challenge him in the future. That’s the point. So Haman has the gallows set up and then he goes to bed quite happy with himself. His plan is to go talk with the king in the morning before the banquet at night just to mention to the king, you know, Hey, no big deal. I’m about to impale Mordecai.
I’ll do that in the afternoon, which means don’t worry, I’ll still be able to make it to Esther’s banquet later in the day. I won’t be late. That’s his plan. When Haman goes to bed, he thinks the next day is about to be the best day of his life. He gets to torture his enemy publicly, and then while Mordecai’s life is slipping away, Haman will be enjoying the finest foods in the kingdom at a special banquet with the king and queen.
In Haman’s mind, this is as good as it gets. So he goes to sleep and the king goes to sleep. But as providence would have it, the king keeps waking up. He’s restless.
Because he can’t sleep, Xerxes calls some of his attendants to just read from the history He says, tell me all the accomplishments that have ever happened under my reign. So they start reading and Xerxes is reminded of an event from years before. This happened earlier in the book of Esther that Mordecai of all people had saved the king’s life by exposing an assassination plot. But for some reason after Mordecai saved the king’s life, Mordecai was not honored in any way. No parade, No parade, no thank you card, no phone call, nothing.
And now it’s been years, still no thank you for Mordecai. So the king, as he can’t sleep, decides, well, we really should do something for Mordecai, but he can’t decide what should be done and he’s mulling it over. And about this time, it’s the next morning and Haman shows up at the palace intending to inform the king of his plan to impale Hail! The same Mordecai, the guy who the king wants to honor. It’s dripping with irony.
And that’s where we pick up the story for today. We’re studying Esther chapters 6 and 7, and as we do, we will see the demise of Haman, the justice of sorts Haman received, and finally the mercy Haman foreshadowed. The demise of Haman, the justice he received, and the mercy Haman foreshadows. So first, the demise of Haman is certain. It all starts to unravel for Haman the morning he goes to the king with his plan to execute Mordecai.
As Haman walks in, even before he’s able to say a word, the king asks, what should I do for the man that I want to honor. Haman, having no idea he’s talking about Mordecai and assuming the king wants to honor him, Haman says, throw that guy a parade! Put the man on your best horse, have people cheer for him as he marches by. And Haman’s probably really excited at this point. He’s thinking, wow, this day keeps getting better!
Not only do I get to kill Mordecai, not only am I going to an exclusive banquet for the second day in a row, but now I’m going to get a parade in my honor. It’s all turning up aces for me.
But it’s actually the beginning of the end for him because Xerxes says, great idea, Haman. I love the horse and robe and parade idea. That’s good thinking. I want you to get that set up for Mordecai.
I want to honor Mordecai. I wish we could see Haman’s face in that moment. It’s the exact opposite of what he’s expecting. It’s the exact opposite of what happened a couple of chapters earlier. If you remember chapter 3 when Mordecai saved the king’s life and Mordecai expected to be honored and we expected Mordecai to be honored but then out of the blue Haman was honored instead.
And it felt like a total shock. This is the reverse of that. This is actually the moment in the narrative of Esther where all the evil that has happened so far begins to reverse. The tide is turning. All the hatred, all the injustice that looked like it was winning up to this point is reversing.
Cursing. Up to this point, Haman had always gotten his way, right? The king seemed like putty in his hands. Corruption was winning until now. It’s like God said, no farther.
And at this moment, all the evil that has begun begins to come undone. Even the people around Haman can sense This is the beginning of the end for you, Haman. Verse 13, his advisors and his wife said to him, since Mordecai, whom your downfall has started, is of Jewish origin, you cannot stand against him. You will surely come to ruin. Which is a curious awareness on their part.
Why did they think that? They don’t follow the God of the Bible. So, why do they say Haman’s ruin is certain? Certain. It’s curious, right?
Apparently though, they had enough experience with the God of the Bible to know if He starts to move, nothing can stop Him. They’re essentially saying if you’ve set yourself up against Israel’s God, quote, you will surely come to ruin. Even though they didn’t follow Him, they thought that. Maybe they heard stories of what happened in Jerusalem just about 30 or 50 years earlier when first exiles returned to rebuild the temple under Nehemiah, and against all odds, they rebuilt the temple. Maybe they’d heard about that, or maybe they heard what happened in Assyria about 130 years earlier when Nahum, a prophet from Israel, told Assyria they would fall because of their immense corruption and injustice, and then Assyria falls.
Or maybe their understanding goes all the way back to ancient Egypt when Israel’s God brought them out of slavery from underneath Pharaoh, and Israel’s God made a mockery of all of Egypt’s gods in the process. You’ve probably heard of the plagues on Egypt, right? But each one of those plagues was actually a way to discredit one of the various Egyptian gods and for Yahweh, the God of the Bible, to show himself as the true unrivaled God, right? For instance, Egypt— the Egyptians worshiped the Nile as a source of life, so God made it a source of of death, turned it into blood so nothing could live in it. They worshiped bulls as a symbol of strength.
They would even mummify bulls sometimes and put them in their tombs. But the God of Israel shows them the symbol of their strongest strength, the bull, can’t stand against Him, and all the cattle die. Perhaps most of all, the Egyptians worshiped the sun. You may have heard Ra, right? He is supposed to be supreme.
But the God of Israel brings about some kind of eclipse and Ra is darkened. The point was these deities had no power compared to the God of Israel. It is Yahweh who is supreme everywhere, always. In Jerusalem with rebuilding the temple, in Assyria when Nahum spoke to them, in Egypt under Pharaoh, and even here in Haman’s setting in 5th century Persia. He is supreme everywhere.
Right? Psalm 97, for you, Lord, are the Most High over all the earth. You are exalted far above all gods. Isaiah 40, the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the earth. The consistent message throughout the Bible is that Yahweh is supreme over all.
And it seems Haman’s wife and advisors have some sense of that. They apparently and correctly respected Israel’s God, even above whichever gods they worshipped. We know that because they don’t tell Haman something like, hey, go pray to our gods real quick, maybe they can protect you from Mordecai’s God. They don’t say that. Instead, they tell Haman, if you’ve positioned yourself against that God, even though we’re all the way over here in Susa, capital of Persia, I mean, we’re almost 1,000 miles away from Jerusalem, Jerusalem, right?
He’s not only over there, he’s over here, he’s everywhere. And this will be it for you. If you’ve set yourself up against the God of the Bible, you have no chance. Nothing can stop Israel’s God. The tide is turning against you, Haman.
The God of the Bible is undoing all of your evil schemes. Your demise is forthcoming. It is certain. That’s what Haman’s wife and friends tell him. Now, second, the justice, in quotes, Haman receives.
He reaps what he sows and he pays what he owes, question mark? We’ll look at those individually. Haman has sown a great deal of corruption, of hatred. He’s oppressed others to enrich himself. We learn the type of man he he is, the type of maneuvering he’s willing to do through both his plan to crucify Mordecai who challenged him and also his proposal to exterminate all the Jews and loot their wealth.
It seems this is how Haman operates. It seems likely this is how he has risen to the level of power and authority in the kingdom that he has and it has worked pretty well up to this point. You know, like some of us have seen people climb to the top top using similar approaches to Haman in our companies, right? Maybe even in our middle school, right? The kid who’s always making fun of everyone else, that kid might be feared and maybe no one wants to challenge that kid and that might work for a while, but it will collapse on itself.
If we build ourselves up through that kind of foundation, it’s a house of cards and eventually it will all come down because we will reap what we sow. It is a type of justice that’s built into the fabric of the universe. It isn’t precise. A lot of times it isn’t proportional. Almost never is it immediate.
It takes a while for the harvest to come in sometimes, but it’s there. We can’t skirt around it. We find that principle throughout the Bible. Galatians 6 is one example, and we see it here with Haman. He has sown hatred, corruption, injustice, oppression, and now it is coming down on him.
When Esther finally reveals after 2 banquets, she said, this vile Haman has plotted to kill me and my people. She says that, that’s it for Haman. The destruction that he has plotted is coming back around to destroy him. He’s been operating in opposition to God, and that’s not going to work forever. Haman cannot win in the end.
God will undo any evil that is built. Maybe he won’t undo it today, maybe not tomorrow, but he will. So for us, when we are troubled because it looks like people who lie, cheat, and steal are rewarded, when it looks like injustice goes unpunished, when it looks like crime pays, whether that’s in our companies or in our classrooms or in various levels of bureaucracy, when it looks like that and we cry out like psalmists do and say, why do the wicked prosper? Aren’t they supposed to reap what they sow? The Bible’s answer for that is they won’t prosper forever.
Psalm 37, Psalm 92, etc. They may flourish for a minute, but they will wither. The tide will turn back against them. God will undo what they have done. And in the meantime, they will always feel unsettled.
They’ll always look over their shoulder worrying if it’s about to fall apart. They will run though no one is chasing them, Proverbs 28. And that’s one type of justice that Haman receives. It’s imprecise, but it’s there. And probably none of us have any issue with that.
In fact, I’m sure most of us wish the reap what you sow principle would work faster with all the corruption that we see in the world. But there’s another type of justice at work that might unsettle some of us, which is that Haman paid what he owed. He paid what he owed. Code. Or did he?
He was penalized to the exact same degree that he planned to victimize someone else.
Haman was impaled, crucified on his own gallows which he had set up for Mordecai who’s basically innocent. That’s poetic justice if it’s not any other kind of justice. But Haman is brutally publicly executed in a way that’s intended to be dehumanizing. Dehumanizing. And maybe that’s too much, or maybe it’s not.
I mean, we all want Haman to be penalized somehow. We know he deserves some penalty from Xerxes if Xerxes is any kind of just king. If Haman is allowed to just keep living his life with no consequences whatsoever after plotting a genocide, there’s something wrong with that. You need some consequences. Haman must must pay something for his crimes.
But did Xerxes get it right? Or did Xerxes go too far? Did Xerxes make Haman pay too much? Is Xerxes a fair judge? Did Haman get what he deserved?
What do you think? You can discuss it at lunch. It would be a great Mother’s Day conversation.
It is one of the difficulties in interpreting Esther because the author of only records what happens. There is no comment anywhere on whether people are doing the right thing or not. And Esther is never referenced anywhere else in any of the other books of the Bible. We don’t have other biblical authors commenting on the events that take place in this book, which means the Bible doesn’t tell us if Xerxes got it right. We don’t know.
But here’s what we do know, whether Xerxes judges Haman fairly or not. The Bible does tell us that a fair judge exists, a judge who shows no partiality, who accepts no bribes, and who is keeping track of all the wrongs that have ever been committed in the history of the world. In other words, there is a judge who will not let anyone get away with anything in the end. All of us must stand before God and give an account for our lives, lives. Haman, Xerxes, Esther, Mordecai, you, me.
Romans 14:12, 2 Corinthians 5:10, we all must give an account. So if Xerxes got it wrong, he will be held accountable for it. And on the one hand, that’s a great comfort because it means no matter how severely someone has wronged us, no matter if it seems like they are getting away with it right now, we can leave them in the hands of the perfect judge who is keeping track. So we can sleep at night. We never need to become vigilantes and pursue those who have harmed us.
God’s got it. He will judge and He will be totally fair. In God’s courtroom when it all goes down and all the evidence is laid out, no one will argue with God’s judgments? We will all say, yes. There will be no appeals.
So, if we’ve been harmed, that’s a great comfort. It cures our thirst for vengeance. That’s on the one hand. But on the other hand, if God is the perfect judge of all the earth, of every single person, if each one of us needs to give an account, Then what does that mean for you and me? When our closets are opened and everything we’ve done is revealed, what will we be required to pay when we are judged with perfect justice, when all of our actions are exposed?
How’s that going to go for us?
That’s less comforting. I mean, we love the fact others will be held accountable, especially if they’ve hurt us. We love the fact they’re accountable. We don’t love the fact that we will be held accountable, or at least me. I’ll speak for myself, right?
If all my closets were opened, if everything was known, I would owe, and I would owe more than I could pay.
And if you’re like me, if you can admit that, then you know your only chance is that this perfectly fair judge of all the earth who will judge everyone, our only hope is that that judge is also merciful. And that’s why we need to see, we need to see the mercy Haman foreshadows. Haman doesn’t receive mercy. Neither Xerxes nor Esther grant Haman any any mercy. Haman falls at the feet of Esther and he begs for his own life.
She doesn’t give it. Now notably, he never repents. He never says he’s sorry for planning to execute her adopted father or planning to exterminate all of her people. He doesn’t ask for forgiveness. He never says he’s wrong.
He just falls at her feet, is not granted his life. But nevertheless, even though Haman didn’t receive this mercy, he foreshadows the ultimate to be revealed later in the biblical story. The mercy Haman foreshadows is the cross. Haman, as wicked as he is, he points us to the one who is far more merciful than Esther. Haman points us forward to the one who not only grants forgiveness to all who ask, but who also pays the price that justice would demand by going to the cross in our place.
If we’re comparing Jesus into the story of Esther, and we should, because actually all Scripture points us to Jesus in some way. If Jesus were in the story of Esther and Haman was sobbing at the feet of Jesus, Haman would have heard Jesus say, I will go to the gallows in your place. I will be crucified instead of you. So Xerxes will get his justice, but you, the guilty one, will be spared. With Jesus, instead of the villain paying for his own sin, the hero pays what the villain owes.
Jesus stands in the villain’s place, suffers on his behalf, and that’s the kind of thing that transforms villains into heroes. I mean, just think if Esther had done that for Haman, if Esther stood in the place of Haman, if the guards grabbed Haman Haman, but Esther said, take me instead. And then Haman saw Esther hanging on the gallows when he knew it should be him up there. What do you think that would have done to Haman’s heart?
Do you think he would have been a villain anymore?
That’s how Jesus wins a people for himself. He stands in their place. He takes their guilt. He pays what they owe.
He will do it for you. He’ll do it for me.
And there will come a day when all the redeemed will stand on the earth and we will praise Him forever and ever and ever for what He has done on our behalf.
Let’s pray. Father, we thank You that You are a God of justice, that You do not let the guilty go unpunished. But we thank You even more, Lord, that You are a God of mercy and grace. And we thank You most especially for Jesus who paid what all of us owe, who hung on gallows in our place.
Even if no one else would ever be willing to do that for us, Lord Jesus was, and we praise you for him. May, may him standing in our place transform us, Lord, to look more and more like you, who is full of mercy and compassion.
We pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
