Hope When All Seems Lost

My name's Rene, another one of the pastors here at TLC. And before I get into the message, I just wanna hold up my own handmade sign. This word describes both my mom and my wife, the mother of my kids. They are both among the most giving people that I have ever met. Hey, my mom's in heaven, but sweetheart, Lori, I love you and I'll see you soon. Happy Mother's Day.

And I just wanna say to all moms, happy Mother's Day. To moms with grown kids, to moms with little toddlers, to moms with kids in between, to step moms, to adoptive moms, to foster moms, to grandmas, to single moms, to moms with prodigal children that you long to have joining you today, but they're not there. To those who've lost moms, to all moms in the whole world, to women who long to be moms today and for whom this is a tough day, we wanna say to all moms, happy Mother's Day. We love you so much.

And since it's Mother's Day, I thought I would tell you a Bible story about one of the strongest women in the Bible. I'm talking about Esther. I love this story and I think you're gonna love it too. I mean, first of all, if you just love stories, you're going to love the book of Esther because it's filled with plot twists and secret messages and assassins and beauty queens. It's just good stuff.

And if you are feeling a little bit hopeless right now because of the COVID crisis, feeling impatient, like your back's against a wall, you're gonna love this story because this whole story is about people who felt just like that. And maybe you're joining us today and frankly, you're not even sure what you think about the Bible or about God or about Christianity. I think you're going to love Esther for an intriguing reason.

Esther is the only book of the Bible that does not mention the name of God one time. Nobody prays in the book of Esther. There are no visions, no angels, no supernatural miracles. So what's the book of Esther doing in the Bible? And how can it give us hope today? Well, let's dive right in Esther 1:1. It says, "This is what happened during the time of King Xerxes." The Xerxes who ruled over 127 provinces, stretching from India to Kush.

Let me show you this on a map. This is about 500 BC. The Persian empire stretched from the Indus River on the border of India, all the way into Africa, the kingdom of Kush. It was at that time the largest empire the world had ever known. And the Bible says that it was ruled by King Xerxes. Now here's a carving of one of the Persian kings from right around this time. There were only about four or five of them in the time of this story. So this could have been a carving of Xerxes, although this carving doesn't have a name attached to it.

But this is the kind of hairstyle and beard and hat that you can imagine as I tell you this story. Well, in the Bible, King Xerxes is portrayed as kind of a party animal. In fact, you could map out the whole book of Esther just in parties. There's parties at the beginning, parties at the end, parties at the middle, all kinds of parties. And it starts with the party of all parties. It says for a full 180 days, this king partied just to show off his vast wealth.

And then after the 180 day party ends, he has an after party. This one is a mere seven days long. And at this party, he allows people to drink, it says, as much as they want. So you can imagine the kind of festivities that take place here. Now it says it was in the enclosed garden of the king's palace. Intriguingly, archaeologists have unearthed the remains of this very place. It was in what was then the royal city of Susa. This is where the king's palace and all of his attendants lived, kind of the Washington DC of the Persian Empire.

And even in ruins, it's quite spectacular, isn't it? You can imagine the kind of parties that might have taken place in this area with fountains and waterfalls and pools and so on. It was quite a shebang. Now the Bible says by the king's command, each guest was allowed to drink with no restrictions. The king instructed all the wine stewards to serve each man whatever he wished. So imagine this taking place, open bar 24/7, the king's picking up the tab.

And on the seventh day, when King Xerxes was in high spirits from wine, I bet he was, he commanded the seven eunuchs who served him to bring before him his queen, Queen Vashti. Now why? What does he want to do? He wants to show her off. Does he want to show off her intellect? Is he saying, hey, bring in the queen so she can do some math problems for everybody? No. It says, in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles, for she was lovely to look at.

And this is really portrayed as a demeaning thing to the queen. Basically, he wants to bring her in as somebody for people to just ogle. And then an extraordinary thing happens. The queen says, no. No. I am not going there to let your friends leer at me as some kind of a sex object. Not going to do that. And this has never happened to King Xerxes before. Somebody said no to him. That's never happened. And it's his wife. His own wife won't obey him. This shakes him to the core.

And so he asks his advisors, what am I supposed to do? And I think this is written as satire, really, because all these middle-aged guys go, well, of course, this is very dangerous. This is like a DEFCON 1 level national security alert, because the women who hear about the queen's conduct will respond to all of their husbands, the king's nobles, in the same way. There will be no end of disrespect and discord. So let the king give her royal position to somebody else. Get rid of the queen. Then all the women will respect their husbands.

Now, this is male chauvinism at its worst. And it's setting up a plot point. If you are a woman who stands up for herself and her beliefs before this king, you are in grave danger. Keep that in mind as the story goes on. But the king goes, obviously, after seven days of nonstop drinking, he's drunk. And he says, that's a great idea. But later, when King Xerxes' fury had subsided, he remembered Vashti. Wakes up sober, remembers her fondly, goes, oh, now I don't have a queen. He wants her back. Big problem.

The way Persian law worked in those days, once the king makes a decree, it can't be reversed. Not even by the king. Not even when he wants his queen back. And so he says to those same attendants, now what do I do? Geniuses? And they say, how about having a Miss Persia beauty contest? They say, let the king appoint commissioners in every province, 127 of them, and bring beautiful young women into the harem. So there's at least 127 women in this contest.

And then let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti. Now, let me just kind of press pause on this story for a second to say, I know what an archaic way of finding the next queen, right? I mean, can you imagine bringing in a large group of beautiful women in order to find one who will be your bride? That could never happen today. Of course, we are far too sophisticated for that. But there was once a time when guys did this, though it may be hard to believe.

Back to the story. There's a Jewish man named Mordecai. And Mordecai had a cousin named Hadassah. Now, Hadassah is a female Jewish name. He's Jewish. She's raising his Jewish cousin because she was an orphan. She had neither father nor mother. And this young woman, who was also known as Esther, had a lovely figure and was beautiful. And so Esther enters the queen contest.

Now, why in the world does this young woman have two names? Verse 10, Esther had not revealed her nationality and family background. In other words, that she was Jewish. Why? Because Mordecai had forbidden her to do so. Now, why would her Jewish uncle forbid her to reveal that she's Jewish? Little History Channel moment here. About 80 or 90 years before this story, a Babylonian king had destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and brought many Jews back to Babylon as his captives.

But then Babylon is conquered by the Persians, who ride in on their horses. And they allow the Jews to go back to their homeland if they want. But many Jews stay in what becomes known as Persia, because the economy is better and so on. And like many minority groups in many cultures over the years, including down to this day, the Jews are despised. People are prejudiced against them. And so her uncle says, you know, you want to win this Miss Persia contest? Yeah, I do, uncle. Well, you're never going to win Miss Persia if you introduce yourself as Hadassah Moskowitz. They hate Jews around here.

So she uses the Persian name. They come up with Esther, which means star. And she lives up to her name. She becomes the star of the pageant. She wins. She becomes the next queen. And the king gave a great banquet. Of course he did. He's the party king. Esther's banquet, he called it, for all his nobles and officials. Speaking of whom, enter the first plot twist. His name is Haman. He's the chief of staff to the king. He's egotistical. He's a bully. He's a thug. He just loves it when everybody grovels before him.

This guy's basically Jafar from Aladdin. This is how he's portrayed in the story. But there's one guy who will not bow down to him, and it's Mordecai, Esther's uncle. When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged. This one guy is ruining my life. And let me just stop to say this. If the worst possible thing you can imagine is someone disrespecting you, that is a sure path to self-destruction. Because you'll never have 100% of all people respecting you. I don't, and you won't.

And so if this is your main life goal, you're going to walk around feeling slighted all the time. And a lot of people are right there. Like Haman, 99.9% of the people bow. One does not, and that's the one guy he becomes obsessed with. In fact, he thinks, I'm going to kill him. And then it gets worse. Yet, having learned who Mordecai's people were, the Jews, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai's people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.

Now remember, Mordecai's connection to Esther is a secret because it says Esther did not reveal anything about her family background. And Esther's Jewishness is a secret because she didn't reveal her nationality. And so we see once again this ancient evil of racism rearing its ugly head. Here it's anti-Semitism. In America, just this past week, we've been hearing about another horrible event where a young black man was gunned down just while out jogging.

And we have to make something clear. Every single time the Bible talks about racism, it is revealed as pure evil, as satanic. The Bible condemns it. God condemns it. I condemn it. And yet somehow it seems to persist throughout all ages ago. You see it here 25 years ago, and you also see it last week. So Haman, this racist, he talks the king into his evil plan by not even mentioning the word Jew. He says, hey, king, there's some people in your kingdom. And I don't want to trouble you with a lot of details, but they're all bad guys. Even the women and the kids, they only have one agenda. It's to overthrow your rule. And so they all need to be gotten rid of.

And the king says, that sounds like a good idea, Haman. You go ahead and write that up as law, and let's throw a party about it. And they do. They have a banquet about this. And Haman rolls dice to choose the date for the slaughter of the Jews. It says the poor, and that's the word for dice, Purim is plural, so that's die. Purim is dice or lot, was cast in the presence of Haman to select a day and a month.

What this was all about, and let me show you what these things looked like. This is a copy of Persian dice. You can see the cuneiform writing there. And they were about this size, and they would roll them. This was their way of fortune telling. And so what Haman's trying to do is come up with the best day and month for his nefarious scheme to actually work, and they reveal a month and a day to him, and then he sends a decree to all 127 provinces. And he seals it with the king's own ring. On this date, kill all the Jews. King's order.

And so now, in the story, there's a countdown. The days are counting down to doom. And this makes the story very suspenseful, because like all the best suspense movies, the counter on the time bomb is now ticking down to zero. And remember, the decree can't be changed. Not even the king can stop this law. So it looks like the Jews are all certainly doomed, because nothing can be done. Wait, because the story's not over.

Mordecai, Esther's uncle, hears about this plot, gets a secret message to his cousin Esther in the queen's palace, and he says, "You've got to go to the king and get him to stop this." And Esther, our hero, the woman that this book of the Bible is named after, says, "Yeah, no. No can do." She says, "Uncle, you just don't understand how things work here in the palace. For any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned, there is but one law, that they be put to death." In other words, you walk into the palace when the king's there. If he hasn't asked for you, you're put to death, unless the king decides to extend amnesty by extending the gold scepter to them and spare their lives.

And she says, "By the way, the king hasn't summoned me in a month. So, uncle, my hands are tied. Wish I could help you out. So sorry." Mordecai gives an answer to Esther that is so classic. He says, "Do not think that because you're in the king's house, you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place." Now, how did he know that? Keep that in the back of your mind because we'll get to that in just a few minutes.

And he says, "But you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this." Maybe this is why God has you there. Maybe this is why you won the beauty pageant. And then finally, Esther says, "Okay. But first, go and gather together all the Jews who are in Susa." That was the name of the royal city. "And fast for me for three days. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish." Man, I love that little sentence right there. "If I perish, I perish." To me, that reveals the backbone in this beauty queen.

You know, it reveals the courage that was inside of Esther. And it kind of reminds me of a true story I read several years ago in the New York Times. A group of protesters went into toy stores and bought hundreds of talking Barbie dolls and talking G.I. Joe dolls. And they switched the voice boxes in the dolls meticulously. And then they repackaged them and put them back on the shelves of toy stores in two different states. This is, I'm not making this up. This is not a joke. This actually literally happened.

So when thousands of little kids bought their talking Barbies or talking G.I. Joe's, they brought them home. They pressed the button on the back and Barbie said, "Attack, attack." And G.I. Joe said, "Let's shop till we drop." True story. Well, I think that Xerxes probably thought he was getting kind of the classic Barbie, you know, stereotype trophy wife, when actually in Esther, he's got G.I. Jane down deep inside there with nerves of steel.

Because three days later, the king's kind of hanging around in his throne room, possibly thinking about throwing another party. And Esther walks in uninvited. And all conversation in the court just stops. There's tension. Because the king didn't ask for her. Her life is in the balance. What will happen? And when he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her. And he held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand. And Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter and the king asked, "What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it'll be given to you."

Now, Esther's very clever. She doesn't come right out with it. She says, "Hey, King, here's what I'd like you to do now. I don't know if it's possible for you to answer my request or not, but I'd like your request that we throw a party." And the king goes, "Yeah." And so they do. They have a great time. And then she says, "Now, if it's okay with you, I've got one other request." He goes, "Anything." She goes, "Well, let's have another party." And the king goes, "You are the best wife ever." And she says, "But here's some qualifications on this party. I want it to be a private party, just you and me, and Haman, your chief of staff."

And Haman hears about this and thinks, "Man, I rock." And the Bible says, "Haman went out that day happy and in high spirits. But when he saw Mordecai at the king's gate and observed that he neither rose nor showed fear in his presence, he was filled with rage against him again." And the Bible says he goes home and tells his wife, "We had a great time at the party. Tomorrow there's another party, but somebody keeps killing my buzz, and it's Mordecai." And his wife, clearly a woman of deep sophistication and compassion, says, "Well, sweetheart, here's what you do. Build a sharp pole 75 feet high in our backyard and impale him on it. That always makes you feel better, sweetums."

And so he builds this 75-foot tall stake, wooden stake in his backyard. I picture him whistling as he works, you know, planning to impale Mordecai on it the very next day. Kind of brings new meaning to the phrase fixing a stake in your backyard. Mordecai seems certainly doomed. But wait, the story's not over. Because meanwhile, back at the palace, that night the king couldn't sleep. And so he ordered the Book of the Chronicles, the record of his reign, to be brought in and read to him.

It's kind of like, "I can't sleep. You, read me a story about me." And the servant does, and it just so happens he opens the scroll to a record of how there had been an assassination plot against the king, but someone, a loyal agent, had overheard the bodyguards talking about their scheme and had reported it, had saved the king's life. And the name of that loyal person who saved his life is Mordecai, Esther's uncle. And the king says, "Hey, did I ever send him a thank you note? You know, what honor and recognition has Mordecai received for this?" the king asked.

And the sermon goes, "Mm, nothing. I got nothing written down here." The king goes, "I hate it when I forgot to send thank you notes. What do you think I should do for him now?" And the servant says, "Well, looks like your boy Haman's already waiting to see you. Ask him." Well, Haman had gotten there early to ask permission to impale Mordecai on that stake in his backyard. The king says, "Haman, great to see you, buddy. Come on in. Now, before you say a word, let me ask you something, bud." And then it says, "When Haman entered, the king asked him, 'What should be done for the man the king delights to honor?'"

And Haman's thinking, "He's got to be talking about me. I mean, I'm going to be the guest of honor at the party tonight." So Haman says, "Well, I tell you what, king. I know that you can't give somebody else your crown, actually, but how about this? Give him one of your robes and give him one of your horses and put your crown on the horse's head." That's kind of the next best thing. "And then let the robe and the horse be entrusted to one of the king's most noble princes to lead him on the horse throughout the city streets, proclaiming before him, 'This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor.'

And the king says, "That is a great idea, Haman. And the man I want to honor is..." And Haman's all, "Yes, king." And the king says, "Well, it's Mordecai." And I imagine Haman's jaw dropping like Daffy Duck in one of those Warner Brothers cartoons kind of hung like this. And then the king says, "And I want you to be the guy leading the rope, leading the horse, and proclaiming his praises throughout the city." And that's what happens. Haman has to lead Mordecai in a parade, and he is mortified at what he has to do for Mordecai.

He goes home after this, says, "Honey, super bad day at the office." And his wife says, "Well, cheer up. At least you got that private party at the boss's house tonight." And he goes, "Oh, yeah. And at that banquet, finally, Esther says, "Well, now that I have the two of you alone, king, I need to tell you something. Somebody in your palace is, well, is trying to kill me and all my people." The king says, "What? Who? Where?" And Esther goes, "Well, it's him. It's Haman." And all of a sudden Haman goes, "Oh, the king's wife is Jewish. Well, I'm toast."

And the king is so flooded with emotion that it says he goes out onto the balcony to collect his thoughts. And as soon as he's gone, this is in the Bible, Haman rushes over to the queen to beg for mercy, but he trips and he falls on her as she's reclining on her couch. And in that very moment, the king comes back inside from the balcony to see Haman on top of his wife and the king exclaimed, "Will he even molest the queen while she is with me in the house?" And the king says, "What should be done to punish this traitor?"

And Haman must have been very disliked because one of the sermons speaks up and says, "Excuse me, Haman does have his own impaling pole in his backyard." And the king says, "Isn't that convenient?" And Haman ends up impaled on the very pole that he had built for Mordecai. And the king turns to Esther and says, "Well, there's a job vacancy. Need a new chief of staff. Who do you recommend?" And guess who she suggests? Uncle Mordecai.

Happy ending yet? No. One little problem. That time bomb is still ticking. Every province of Persia has already received the order to kill the Jews, and there's only about three days left. And the king says, "Yeah, about that order, honey, Haman sealed it with my signet ring and no document written in the king's name and sealed with his ring can ever be revoked. I can't do anything about it. I can't change that decree." So now what? It is a disaster. It is completely hopeless.

Wait. Story's not over. The king says, "Esther, you know what? You seem pretty sharp. You'll figure something out." And he basically gives her the stylus and lets Esther write legislation in his name. And I love the reversal here because this book starts with the queen standing up to the king, speaking her mind and getting punished for it. And it ends with Esther doing the same thing for a much greater purpose and getting rewarded for it.

And her solution is this. What's she going to do, right? Well, she writes, "The Jews shall be legally allowed to defend themselves if attacked." And she sends out these decrees on the fastest horses because now it's a race against time. And just in the nick of time, the new decree arrives and they do defend themselves, routing their opponents. And it says, "For the Jews, it was a time of happiness and joy and gladness and honor." And check this out. And many people of other nationalities became Jews.

So not only are the Jewish people not eradicated, they are multiplied. Not only are they no longer hated, it becomes like the in thing to be Jewish. And just as the story starts with a party and as parties in the middle, it ends with a giant party that is still celebrated to this day every year by the Jewish people called Purim, which remember means dice, because for a time it looked like the survival of the Jewish people hung on a roll of the dice. What a story. Don't you just love this?

And you ask, why is it in the Bible? Well, because it has two keys to staying hopeful in tough times that the Jewish people needed to hear over the centuries, that the Christians needed to hear when persecuted over the centuries, and that you and I need so much to this day. What did we learn about how to live with hope during this coronavirus crisis from this story? Well, there's two big words here in the story, purpose and providence. Purpose and providence.

Number one, remember that I have purpose. Remember that you have a purpose in the midst of this. Do you remember what Mordecai told Esther? Who knows but that you are here for such a time as this. Have you ever considered that God has you right now, right where you are right now for such a time as this? Maybe you don't like your circumstances right now. Maybe you're getting upset and you're complaining and you're grumbling. I would say instead, look around because I really believe God has you in your specific circumstances for a very specific purpose.

I mean, God has you in that neighborhood, in your senior living complex or in your mobile home park or at that job for such a time as this. There's something for you to do there. There's someone for you to help there. There's someone for you maybe to lead to faith there. You know, times of trouble are also times of miracles and God has put you where you are maybe to enact something powerful. I believe you were made for this. You are placed for this. You were saved for this.

Let me just give you one example. Gwenda Baker here at TLC. Gwenda has been a nurse for her whole career and she began a ministry at home of making face masks. Figured this is going to be my purpose. And I asked her a little bit more about it on a Zoom call a couple of days ago. Watch this. So how many people do you have sewing for you? I think our group is up to probably 12 or 13 now. Our youngest one, I believe, is in her maybe mid to late 20s. And then we have women all the way in their 70s. And we just had our first fellow join us.

So what kind of groups and people are getting these masks? We've made, our group has made probably over 700. And we've taken them to Aegis, Dominican Oaks, Panphoncology, Hematology, Teen Challenge Men's Center. How has this helped you as you've navigated this coronavirus crisis? It's been wonderful. And I'm getting this from my sewers too, from my team. Thank you so much, they say, for giving me a purpose, something to do during this. So here I am at my home with my husband, Dan, who's one of the pastors on staff. And so his office is basically almost the whole house.

So me, to be able to sit at my sewing machine and have my ministry to do something that I love to do anyway and have a purpose, it's just a privilege to be able to provide people with this barrier that they need to keep themselves safe and others safe. There really is something beautiful and magical about choosing to live with a sense of purpose instead of just focusing on the negative, isn't there? Yeah. Isn't that great? And you can help out, Gwenda, you can go to TLC.org/help to get more info about what she's doing if you want to volunteer.

But you don't really have to just go through TLC's website. You can just open your eyes to your own neighbors, your own circle, text them, write them something encouraging, ask them, how can I help you? Maybe you can go shopping for some elderly folks or vulnerable folks in your neighborhood. And then also, I want to suggest this. You, right where you're at, you can have a ministry of prayer. Pray for our leaders, pray for people who are sick, pray for first responders, people on the front lines. Just go to TLC.org/prayer to download our prayer list and pray, pray, pray.

If you're finding you have some extra hours on your hands, perhaps God has given you those hours for such a time as this to pray. Remember, you have a purpose. And then the second key to hope in the midst of this story is to remember God's providence. And providence is a great old word that simply means God is always working behind the scenes. As I said earlier, Esther is the only book of the Bible where God is not mentioned not one time. And you know, personally, I kind of like that there's a book of the Bible like that. Why? Because that's what our lives feel like today.

You know, sometimes we imagine that back in Bible days, it was different. People were having, you know, breakfast with God every day. But most of the time they were just like us. They didn't see him or hear him, yet they believed God is at work even when you can't see him. And this is a big part of the point of Esther and a point I want to make today. Listen, maybe you've lost your job because of this. God is at work even though you can't see him. Maybe you're worried about losing your home. God's still at work even though you can't see him.

Maybe you're a mom today heartbroken because a child has exiled themselves from the family. You're waiting for them to come back to you. God is at work in that child's life even though you can't see him. This is so important. One of the subtle messages of this book of the Bible is this. While God is silent, often he's silent, right? We can't often hear his voice. But while God is silent, he is not absent. God is always invisibly but invincibly writing an end to the story. So when you can't sense God's presence, remember God's promises.

I really believe that Mordecai was confident that the Jews would be delivered because he remembered the promises God had given to the Jewish people when they went into exile. He clung to promises in God's word even though he couldn't see the presence of God. And you and I can do the same thing because you've got promises. Promises like, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." Promises like, "He has created good works to do for you and he's planned them out from before the creation of the world." So cling to that. Your purpose, God's providence.

Bottom line for me with the book of Esther. Did things seem hopeless in this story? Yes, constantly. Do things perhaps seem hopeless today? Maybe. But keep remembering, story's not over. You know, maybe right now you're so frustrated because of the COVID crisis, but the story's far from over. Maybe you're discouraged and overwhelmed by the constant changes. The story is not over. Is not over, maybe this week you found yourself despairing because of continual racism and other social ills. Hang in there. The story's not over.

I mean, remember the central story of our faith, the central image of our belief system is the cross. Jesus hung dead on that cross, but God said, "Story's not over." Up ahead, resurrection and redemption and renewal. And just as God was working then, when all seemed hopeless, God is silently but certainly at work right now. There is hope. Would you pray with me? Let's bow in prayer wherever you are at.

Heavenly Father, help us live with hope. Hope that the story's still being written and you're the author. Hope that we have a purpose, we have a role to play in the story you're writing. And God, I especially want to pray for anybody watching who's feeling hopeless right now. Help them remember that ultimate hope comes from knowing you and that all who believe in you have abundant life and eternal life.

And Lord, we want to join in prayer right now for a couple of specific groups of people. We pray for all those impacted directly by COVID, for those who are sick, for those who have lost loved ones, for the medical professionals, the first responders, the researchers, the civic leaders. Give them hope and discernment and insight and strength. We pray for all moms today, all the esthers in our lives, that they would know they're loved and that they're an important part of the story that you are writing.

And finally, Lord, I want to pray for the family of the young surfer who lost his life here in Santa Cruz County yesterday. We pray that you would envelop them with your peace, give them your strength, and most of all, the certain hope of the resurrection. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.