Today begins our new AOL reading schedule which will take us to the end of the year. Are you still on board? I hope so. You can pick up a hard copy of the reading schedule at the Welcome Center.
We start with the reading of the book of Esther today. I actually just went to Loew’s Theatres yesterday to see One Night with the King, a recreation of the story of Esther based on Tommy Tenney’s book, Hadassah. It was very good and opened my eyes to several aspects of Esther that I had not noticed before. Of course, every movie takes some artistic license to fill in parts that are unknown from the biblical text. This movie is no exception but overall it was very faithful to the biblical story and very challenging and soul stirring. I would encourage you to go see it if you can. It has not gotten much press or secular attention but apparently is doing fairly well nationally (which, by the way, is a great way to keep confounding Hollywood ;>).
Chapter one of Esther does not have any particular verse that I can write down as a devotional thought. Actually the whole book will probably be like that. It is the entire story itself that draws us toward God and His providence. Chapter one is no exception.
Basically chapter one can be summarized like this: King Xerxes of Persia (the reigning empire of the time, ~500-400 BC) throws a big party for six months to show how rich and great the kingdom of Persia is. Near the end of his party, with wine freely flowing, he decides that he wants his queen, Vashti, to make an appearance at the banquet so that he can show off her beauty. Vashti says, “No way. I’m not going to go to your party so that a bunch of drunk men can ogle at me” or something to that effect.
At this point, most women reading this will probably say, “Way to go, Vashti.” However, Xerxes and the men in those days saw this as a serious problem. If Vashti can say ”no” to the king, the most powerful man in the known world, then what’s to prevent other women in the kingdom from doing the same. If Persia Pete comes home and asks for dinner, his wife (a new recruit in the Vashti Women’s Club) might just say, “Fix it yourself, buddy.” Thus creating a worldwide crisis.
It is hard not to laugh at this story. Here are the most powerful men in the world trying to figure out how to keep their wives from ruling their lives. At this very time, Xerxes is preparing a huge battle with the growing empire of Greece to determine who will rule the world. And now he is faced with the very real problem that he can’t even control his wife at home. He immediately holds a little conference at the party and decides to depose Vashti and seek another queen and, to make sure no other woman gets any crazy ideas, he issues a decree dispatched to the whole kingdom saying, “Every man should be ruler over his own household.”
In the midst of all this, two thoughts struck me this morning:
1. Our weakness. As humans, we try so hard to control things. But here is the most powerful man in the world, Xerxes, who can’t even control his wife. He can command her to do things, even force her to do things or depose/kill her if she refuses. But he can’t control her heart. He can’t even control the hearts of the people in this kingdom. All he can do is throw a party and show off how powerful he thinks he is. We are so puny in our strength but we try so hard to act like we are strong.
2. God’s power. Behind the scenes in all this, God is working. God is not absent. Even in the midst of drunken men thinking they control the world, God is orchestrating events in a way that will ultimately bring glory to Himself and protection to His people. We can rest on that assurance even today.
God, forgive me when I try too hard to prop up my own strength and competence. Help me to rest in You and rely upon Your strength in this world.