History Repeats Itself

If what is happening in Iran is any indication, history seems to be in one of her repeating moods. Today, after all, the country the Bible calls “Persia” is governed by a man who says that “Israel must be wiped off the map;” who proposes to resettle Israel’s Jewish population in Canada; who hosts conferences denying what may one day be known as the first holocaust; who boasts about a nuclear program deemed illegal by the international community, a program he promises to use only for “the development of Iran and expansion of peace in the world.” And incredibly, an oblivious world accepts Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s promises of peace while overlooking his warlike words.

The Bible tells a similar story – the story of how the great nation of Persia was nearly hijacked by a mad-man with plans to destroy all Jews, the story of a wise man who sounded the alarm when others averted their gaze and shut their ears, the story of a hero-in-the-making who wrestled with her purpose in the world and her responsibility to the future.

Amid the present rumors of war, the Book of Esther may offer a history for our time.

The Book of Esther could just as well have been called the “Book of Mordecai” – and perhaps it should have been. After all, it was Mordecai who raised Esther, watched over her like a father, counseled and challenged her, emboldened and encouraged her, interceded for her.

Mordecai took responsibility for his younger cousin, Esther, upon her parents’ death. He was morally centered and faithful to God – and stubborn when it came to right and wrong. In fact, it was Mordecai’s goodness and stubbornness that caused the drama described in Esther to unfold.

After Esther became queen of Persia, Mordecai visited the royal courtyards daily to make sure she was all right. During one of the visits, he overheard a plot to assassinate the king and dutifully reported it to Queen Esther.

Mordecai could have stayed out of it. After all, Xerxes wasn’t his king, but that didn’t matter to Mordecai. He knew right from wrong, and he did what was right.

During another visit to the gates outside the king’s courtyard, Mordecai refused to bow before a powerful royal official named Haman. “When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged” - so enraged that he resolved “…to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom…” (Esther 3:5-6).

Driven by hate and conceit, Haman persuaded the oblivious Xerxes to issue a death sentence against Mordecai and his people. “Dispatches were sent by couriers with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews.”

Mordecai did the only thing he could do – he began to intercede for his people and told Esther of Haman’s terrible plans. But she initially balked, explaining that “…for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned, the king has but one law: that the person be put to death” (Esther 4:11). Her fears were well-founded. Xerxes had deposed the previous queen simply because she didn’t respond to his summons.

Undeterred by Esther’s rationalization, Mordecai answered his wavering cousin with both reason and passion. Reminding her that she would not escape Haman’s sword and that she had a special duty because of her special place, he finally convinced her to act with powerful words: “…who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14). With that, Esther answered, “I will go to the king; if I perish, I perish.”

When Esther finally spoke to the king, her words were plain and pointed. “The adversary and enemy is this vile Haman,” she explained, courageously confronting her enemy face to face.

“Spare my people – this is my request” she declared, finally revealing her Jewish ancestry. “For I and my people have been sold the destruction and slaughter and annihilation.”

Awakened to Haman’s motives and plans, Xerxes repealed Haman’s mass-murder sentence and then issued an edict granting “Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves…” (Esther 8:11).

Others have noted that God is not mentioned anywhere in the Book of Esther, yet He is everywhere in the story – in Esther’s unexpected rise to queen, in Mordecai’s timing and words, in Xerxes’ sleepless night, in the peoples’ prayers, in Haman’s undoing.

What does all this history mean to me as I absorb the daily dose of bad news from Iran? I realize that Iran has enough oil to meet its energy demands for 250 years. In other words, Iran doesn’t need nuclear power.

When taken together with Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program, Ahmadinejad’s words move from the realm of the merely appalling to the terrifying. Iran has called for the destruction of Israel for decades.

But since Iran has never possessed the one weapon that has the capacity to erase an entire nation, the threat was just a nightmare. But it is hard to imagine a nuclear-armed Ahmadinejad giving Israel any peace-options for survival.

This is where you and I can help. We can intercede in prayer for our leaders, for our world, for our friends and even for our enemies – asking God to either get us through this looming storm or to steer us around it.

Mordecai was an intercessor. He followed the example of Samuel, who “cried out to the Lord on Israel’s behalf, and the Lord answered him.” In the same way, we can ask God to transform or overcome our enemies, to protect our fragile world, to guide our leaders to do what is right and wise. Our posture should be like Lincoln’s in the midst of the Civil War. “My concern,” he explained, “is not whether God is on our side, but whether we are on God’s side.”

Of course, even it we turn to God, He may remain silent. The Bible reminds us that God moves and sometimes doesn’t move in mysterious ways.

We must remember that we live in the far fringes of understanding the One who created us. But that didn’t stop Mordecai from turning to God. His intercession and God’s intervention changed Esther’s mind and saved countless innocents.

There is no guarantee that we won’t have to endure the trial. As Jesus warned, the storm comes for both the man who builds on rock and the man who builds on sand. To be prepared for the approaching storm in Iran, the best we can do is turn to the Rock.

The grace of God in Jesus Christ is sufficient to deal with any and all situations we will ever face.

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