Today's Meditation

Read Esther 4:4-17

⁴When Esther’s maids and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed; she sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth; but he would not accept them.

⁵Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what was happening and why. ⁶Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate, ⁷and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. ⁸Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and entreat him for her people. ⁹Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. ¹⁰Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai, saying, ¹¹“All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—all alike are to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden scepter to someone, may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.” ¹²When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, ¹³Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴For 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.” ¹⁵Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, ¹⁶“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” ¹⁷Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

    When Queen Esther heard about Mordecai's lament, how he has clothed himself in sackcloth and ashes and how he has cried day and night at the king's gate, she sent a messenger, Hathach, to find out what was going on.  Mordecai pleads for her to go to the king and implore him on behalf of her people to change his mind.

    Replies go back and forth between Esther and Mordecai.  She asks Mordecai to spread the news that the Jews in Susa are to fast for three days and three nights, as she herself will do.  Why does she ask this?  One of the spiritual disciplines is fasting.  It is an ancient custom of not eating for a specific period of time in order to focus the mind and the body on a higher purpose, it is often a time of intense prayer.  With the gathered community praying and fasting for Esther, as she also does, Esther is given a plan of action. 

    Mordecai's words will be forever engrained in my own heart when I heard Freda Gardner, professor of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary, preach a sermon, For Such A Time As This, at the General Assembly of our denomination in 1999.  "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."

    Who knows?  Perhaps we have been placed on this earth right here, right now, for such a time as this.  What have you been called to say and do, right now, for such a time as this?

For Such a Time as This