Sermon Notes — July 5, 2026
“Esther”
Esther 4:10b-17 (CEB)
July 5, 2026
Rev. Dr. Mary Beth Bernheisel
Trivia time. There is a small detail that makes the book of Esther different from every other book in the bible. Does anyone know what that is?
(Wait for it)
Right, God is never mentioned in the Book of Esther. So this morning, our challenge is to find God in the Book of Esther.
Will you pray with me and for me?
Esther is a Jewish woman. The Bible doesn’t tell us much about her, but we do know that she is an orphan, and her guardian is a man named Mordecai. Esther and her guardian Mordecai live about one generation after Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, so we also know that Esther’s parents were part of that first wave of deportations when King Nebuchadnezzar brought the best and the brightest from Judah to the city of Babylon. So she comes from wealthy and powerful people.
King Cyrus of Persia has now defeated the Babylonian Empire, so Esther and Mordecai now live in the Persian Empire.
I’ll show you some maps to compare the two.
This is the map of the Babylonian empire that we saw last week.
But here’s the Persian Empire.
It’s about ten times the size of the Babylonian empire. Right in the middle of the map, just under the words Persian Empire, you can see a little dot of yellow. That is Susa, also called Shusah, and that’s where the story of Esther takes place, about 220 miles east of Babylon. And just for a piece of utterly useless trivia, Susa is in modern day Azerbaijan.
When the book opens King Cyrus is hosting a banquet. A banquet that lasts for six months. At the conclusion of the banquet Cyrus decides that he would like to show off his wife to his guests, so he summons his wife, Queen Vashti, to come and see him. Queen Vashti refuses. And so he writes two laws: the first says that every man should be master in his own house, and the second says that Vashti can never come before him again. Now, if you’re sitting there trying to find the logic in any of King Cyrus’ actions, don’t bother. Cyrus was narcissistic, impulsive, and petty, and made decisions based on their entertainment value.
This leaves Cyrus without a queen. His solution to this problem was to round up all the pretty ladies in Susa. For six months they received oil treatments, and for another six months they received treatments with perfumes and cosmetics. At the end of the year, King Cyrus held a forced pageant to choose his new queen.
Esther, of course, wins. She is the new queen.
And now the story gets really good.
We’re going to introduce a new character, an evil man named Haman. Cyrus appoints Haman to be a vice-king. Haman hates Mordecai – Mordecai is Esther’s guardian – for lots of reasons, but mostly because Haman is just a bitter, hateful, angry guy and Mordecai refuses to give him the respect he thinks he deserves.
And so Haman decides to kill Mordecai; and not just Mordecai but all of the Jews living in the Persian empire. He tells Cyrus his plan, only he doesn’t say that he wants to kill the “Jewish people.” He says that he wants to kill “certain people.” Cyrus is too busy planning his next party to worry about what Haman is up to, and so he tells Haman: go ahead and write a law of genocide, have it translated into the native languages of all 127 provinces, and send it throughout the empire.
Cyrus does not know that his wife is one of these “certain people.”
The decree is written and delivered throughout the empire.
Esther doesn’t know about any of this until she sees Mordecai dressed in sackcloth and ashes. She sends a messenger to ask him why he is grieving, and Mordecai sends a message back to her. King Cyrus has ordered the slaughter of every Jew in the empire.
Mordecai doesn’t ask Esther to intervene on behalf of the Jews, but she knows what she has to do. She sends this message back to Mordecai.
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: 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.”
Mordecai sends this message back:
Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, 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.”
That’s the line. If we remember anything at all from the story of Esther, this is the line that we probably remember: for just such a time as this. The line reminds us that even when we can’t see God at work, God is working.
Esther gathers her courage and tells Mordecai to spread the word to all the Jews in Susa. She and her servants will fast for three days and three nights, and all the Jews in Susa should do the same. After the fast is over she will go to the king, and she proclaims
If I perish, I perish.
After three days of fasting and prayer, Esther goes to King Cyrus. He holds out his golden scepter to her and offers her anything she wants, even up to half of his kingdom.
Three times he asks her this, and after the third time, she tells Cyrus that she wants him to spare her life and the lives of her people. Cyrus is enraged! Who in the world would dare to annihilate Queen Esther and her people?
Esther points to Haman, and Cyrus orders his servants to hang Haman on the very same pole that Haman had planned to hang Mordecai on.
You’ll have to read the rest of the story because it doesn’t end there, but the upshot of the whole story is that the Jews are saved, and in Esther 9:19 we read that the Jews of the villages, who live in the open towns, hold the fourteenth day of the thirteenth month as a day for gladness and feasting, a holiday on which they send gifts of food to one another.
This holiday is now called Purim, and is still celebrated by our Jewish brothers and sisters who feast at home and with friends, and celebrate as well in the synagogue with the reading of the story of Esther. The quintessential Purim food is hamantaschen, which means Haman’s ears, and making and eating them is a way to make fun of the villain in the story.
Esther is a lot of things. It is a story of exile, living in a place that isn’t home. It is a story of God’s mercy. It is a story of salvation. It is also a story about the origins of a beloved holiday. But ultimately it is a Jewish story, and our Jewish brothers and sisters remember every year in their Purim celebration that when their ancestors in Persia were threatened to be destroyed, killed, and annihilated, God made sure that they were saved.
Here’s the wisdom that the story of Esther teaches us about God and about ourselves.
First, what changes around us does not change who we are. Esther was not the model Jew like Daniel and his pals, which is understandable when you think about it. Unlike Daniel and his buddies, she has never lived in Jerusalem. She was born in a foreign land and her life in Susa is the only life she knows. She married a foreign king and ate his food. She never went out of her way to follow the law of Moses except to fast. And yet she is faithful. Her faith looks very different from Daniel’s faith, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s faith. But she is faithful. When God gives her the opportunity to save her people, even though it means risking her life, she takes it.
Regardless of the circumstances we find ourselves in, we are God’s people and we have the opportunity to do the right thing, and the right thing is always the thing that reflects God’s character. Esther knew her God to be a God of salvation. And so she did the thing that saved her people.
Second, our circumstances are always part of God’s salvation. God is always working to save the world. God’s Holy Spirit invites us to abide in that truth. Perhaps you’ve asked yourself, how can my one little life among billions of other lives, on one planet in the middle of an infinitely expanding universe be part of the story of salvation? And the answer is that I don’t know. But what I do know is that God is persistently and consistently and tirelessly redeeming the world, and so whatever story we’re in is part of God’s bigger story of redemption. I am not saying that God causes tragedy, heartache, and destruction for the redemption of the world. That is a dangerous theology. But what God can do – and what God does do – is transform everything – even tragedy, heartache, and destruction–for the salvation of the world.
All of our small stories are part of God’s cosmic story of salvation.
Third, we can live big or we can live small. That sounds like such a pile of woo woo on the self-help aisle at Barnes and Noble, but hear me out. God’s Holy Spirit lives within each of us, and that presence of God in us makes us more than we could ever be on our own. Because the Spirit of God lives in us – each of us – and us – all of us – we can live boldly for the sake of God’s kingdom. We can take risks; we can walk into fear; we can share our gifts. We can say like Esther, If I perish, I perish.
Esther had to decide. Did she want to be Cyrus’ trophy wife? Or did she want to do the thing that could save her people? She decided to take the risk, and if she died doing it, at least she was being faithful to God who was faithful to her. She chose to live big. We can make the same choice not because we’re brave or even because we’re good, but because the Holy Spirit lives in us, making us more than we could be on our own.
Friends, in every circumstance you belong to God, who is always working to save the world. God’s Holy Spirit lives in you, so live big in this broken world.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.