Sometime around March or April last year, as part of my daily Hebrew reading, I worked my way through the Book of Esther. I often post thoughts, reflections or prayers on Facebook, based on my daily devotions, so I ended up Facebooking my entire way through this wonderful ancient story of political intrigue and spiritual adventure. This was one the best-received devotional series I did last year, and I actually found my own devotional and discipleship life deeply impacted by the slow thoughtful reading it required, to offer a daily reflection on what I was reading, 10 verses at a time. As the New Year starts and I'm looking for fresh blogging material, I thought it might be helpful to slightly re-work this material and post it here as a devotional commentary on Esther. My hope is to provide one post a week until we're done.
Esther 1:1-10.
I love the opening verses of Esther, with its description of the lavish, luxurious and opulent spectacle that was the court of the Persian Emperor Ahasuerus. In ten short verses we read about an 180 day-long festival, which culminated in a 7-day long feast, where each official of the palace (from the least to the greatest) ate and drank according to his desire (v.8). Verses 6-7 paint about as vivid a picture of decadence as you can read anywhere in the Old Testament. With its "tapestries of white and purple and silver, marble columns, couches of gold, a pavement of porphyry, marble and precious stones," the courtyard of King Ahaseurus is as elegant and extravagant a setting as the ancient world could imagine.
Reading the Bible in short little bites like this forces us to slow down and ponder. Esther and her Jewish kin haven't shown up on the scene yet, so all we know at this point is this: whatever else this book is about, it's going to deal with the challenge of being faithful People of God when we are living near the Lap of the World's Luxury. And already, ten verses in, it doesn't sound like it's gonna be easy, staying true to God when you're surrounded by all the worst distractions of the world's pomp and extravagance and wealth.
I think about this a lot, because we live in a world, surrounded by a kind of luxury that, though it's of a different nature than anything in ancient Persia, makes Ahasuerus's decadence seem somewhat quaint. And one of the challenges of being God's People in this day and age is the same challenge Esther and Mordecai and the rest are going to deal with: how to keep our eyes fixed on God, when so many golden baubles are dangling before our faces?
Esther 1:1-10.
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