A Year of Celebrating Biblically: Purim, a Quiet Reflection
A sort of single minded intensity guided Mordecai, the leader of the Jews in Sushan who sat by the palace gate. A sure and certain adherence to the written revelation of God determined his course, and no human proclamation would sway it. This was the sort of man who did what was right in the eyes of God.
Mordecai lived his life in pagan captivity. Punished by God for their disobedience, the children of Israel were made captives by the Persians. As far as scripture states, Mordecai had no children of his own, which was generally regarded as a sign of disfavor with God. And then because of a death in his family, he raised his baby cousin as his own daughter. She grew to become a beautiful woman and was then hunted down and rounded up by the guards and delivered to the king, along with countless other virgins, to be “evaluated” on their suitability to be his wife.
“Where is God in all of this? My life is a life of pain and suffering of which I see no end,” Mordecai could have lamented. Certainly the question seems valid. The name of God is not mentioned once in the entire book. Where was He in all of that?
And yet:
When asked to kneel before a wicked man, Mordecai refused.
When presented with a plot to kill a wicked king, Mordecai intervened and acted to preserve that wicked king’s life.
Upon reading the decree to destroy the people of God, Mordecai asked his daughter to risk death on the people’s behalf.
Current, physical, legal circumstances had little bearing on his decision making: there was God, and the path He laid out, and Mordecai was going to walk that path, not looking to the right or left.
He revered God. He concerned himself with the things of God and the people of God. His example of consistent moral courage must have inspired his adopted daughter. Like Mordecai, Esther prioritized God and His people even above her own life’s safety. After fasting and praying for three nights and three days— an incredible feat of self-sacrifice and denial in and of itself— she faced death and approached the king to beg for the lives of her people.
Imagine the futility of such a mission. Imagine the impossibility of it.
What could one person do in the face of such evil?
And then, God moved mightily.
The pagan king had favor on his Jewess Queen, and on her cousin Mordecai as well. He elevated Mordecai above every official in his kingdom and allowed him to write a new proclamation, nearly invalidating the first, to the detriment of his own pagan citizens.
Yes, God moved mightily. But He also moved through His people and He required His people to move. While God and God alone spoke the world into existence, calmed the raging sea, sent bread down from heaven, and selected for Himself a chosen people (based not on their merits but on His goodness and mercy), more often Scripture shows God partnering with His children to accomplish His mighty work upon the earth. God parted the Red Sea after the Israelites left Egypt by faith. God provided streams in the desert after Moses struck the rock by faith. While God promised and prepared the land of Cannaan for Abraham’s descendants, they still had to wage literal war by faith in order to occupy it. Yes, God moved mightily to save the Jewish exiles in Persia but He partnered with His people who in obedience stepped out in faith.
In celebrating Purim, the Jewish people remember and rejoice at the hidden hand of God who is mighty to save even when human minds perceive Him as far off. And they also remember and rejoice in the memory of their forefathers who risked all in obedience to God, who did not consider a life lived outside their convictions to be a life worth preserving.