Dcn Susan Erickson

“‘Who knows?  Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.’”  —Esther 4: 14

Dear Siblings in Christ,

The quotation above is a musing of Mordecai, Esther’s cousin. The book tells the story of a Jewish population exiled in the Persian empire.

Queen Esther, a Jew, is the favorite wife of the despotic and impulsive King Ahasuerus. When a wicked court official, Haman, persuades Ahasuerus to write a decree dooming all Jews in his kingdom to destruction, Esther becomes the savior of her people—but not without an inner struggle and some tough language from Mordecai.

Although Esther is appalled at Haman’s plot, she can’t seek out King Ahasuerus to plead with him, since anyone who seeks a royal audience without first being invited is sentenced to death. Esther sends a message to Mordecai letting him know of this dilemma. And Mordecai answers:  “‘Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.’”

So Esther requests that Mordecai and all the Jews fast for three days, as she herself will. She then promises to seek out Ahasuerus—even if it means death. She is ultimately successful; the evil Haman is executed and the Jews are not only saved but permitted to turn the tables on their persecutors.

The Tuesday morning Bible Study group read Esther last summer, along with the book of Daniel. It’s a rather strange little book, a kind of biblical outlier. One of Esther’s strange aspects is that God is never mentioned.

But Mordecai’s phrase “just such a time as this” has haunted readers and listeners down through the centuries, and it still challenges us today. Who knows whether each and every one of us has not come “to dignity”—perhaps defined simply as our privileged status as American citizens—for “such a time as this?” As Christians, how then can we keep silent in the face of the Hamans and Ahasueruses of our own day?

So may we, like Queen Esther, shut out the things that distract us and find strength through prayer and in community.

—Dcn Susan