Week 22 Esther
When Haman’s Extermination Law was enacted Mordecai told Esther she had to do something. Had to make a decision.
His appeal wasn’t very sensitive. He just bluntly told her she wouldn’t get out alive anyway: you and your father’s house will perish.
I’ve wonder about that forecast, wondered if it was true, wondered if Esther couldn’t have finagled her way, kept under the radar. Mordecai made it seem like she had no chance. But maybe she did. Even a slim chance would be worth a shot.
Mordecai’s second argument was a bit different: who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?
So Esther’s dilemma shifts from: can I save myself? to: is saving myself my top priority?
I thought about the story of the widow of Zarephath. Elijah asks for food. She says I only have food for one last meal and then my son and I will starve to death and Elijah says okay will you give me some of that?
Elijah and Mordecai are just about equally demanding. And the widow and Esther are just about equally heroic in deciding – in the face of their different potential deaths – to look out beyond themselves.
So the big question for these women was: is there something bigger than you?
Notes: quotes from Esther 4:14 (NASB version). Widow of Zarephath story is I Kings 17.