If you don’t know the story then read the whole book of Esther, an amazing woman who stood up to a mighty king and saved her people.
Yesterday at church we talked about the Temptations of Jesus but also talked a lot about things we’d given up, or taken up, for Lent – that Christian tradition which remembers Jesus time in wilderness and leads us up to Easter and used to be a time of fasting but now we cheat and do thinks like just give up chocolate, or going on Facebook, or drinking alcohol, or swearing, or take up something that seems noble!
As a child I used to get really confused that Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness and was only out for a week or so before he was crucified.
But whilst Christians are thinking of fast, or side-tracking real fasting and giving up something, the Jewish community has the festival of Purim where there is wild partying and celebrating because God saved his people from destruction via an obedient and very brave young woman who was chosen by the Persian despot Xerxes for sex purposes. The Persians ruled over the known world with a huge empire that, like the Romans, treated anyone outside the elite like they were subhuman. Xerxes has got rid of his Queen because she didn’t do as he said and then got all the beautiful virgins [teenage girls] from across his kingdom, who were then prepared for one night with him. One night where he would rape them and if he liked what he got he might have them back but if not they were defiled and put in his harem for the rest of their lives! Esther was raped by him but apparently he liked what he got and so she was invited back. She was so brave to go before him because she could have been killed but she is clever as well as beautiful and manages, though very clever means, to save the Jewish people from destruction. [Read the story]
Lots of this sounds very familiar to what we are hearing in the news at the moment – powerful rich men who choose innocent young women, rape them and then discard them, and also don’t own up to their wicked deeds.
But what I wanted to share – before I went off on a rant – was that we need to look at what Rachel says in the top image; of stepping out, of realising these are the only days we have and we need to do right in them, of showing our true colours.
I wonder if, as Christians, it might be time to use Lent to stand up and be counted, to stand before kings, before leaders, to stand up for the oppressed, to really shout “your kingdom come, your will be done” and stop all this shimmy shamming and pretence of “aren’t I good to give up chocolate/learn a psalm every day/etc”.
My prayer for myself today from the above is “strengthen in me the deep desire to stand up for what is right”.
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