On this day our Jewish friends celebrate the festival of Purim.  I don’t know about you, but I was totally unaware of the significance of this commemoration.  Yet, it’s all there in the Book of Esther.  Perhaps we could take a quick look. Purim celebrates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman in the 5^th century BC.

God’s guidance and leading in the Book of Esther is almost hidden.  Events happen by apparent coincidence.  But God was at work behind the scenes.  Esther was a Jew, who “just happens” to be chosen as queen from hundreds of candidates.  Then there’s her uncle, Mordechai, who “just happens to hear about a conspiracy against the King and reports it.   In another “just happens,” nothing has been done to recognize Mordechai’s good deed. 

Haman has a gallows built to hang Mordechai, but as he comes to the King to ask for permission, it”just happens” that the king, unable to sleep the night before, had heard the royal records of Mordechai’s actions on his behalf.  It “just happens” that at the same moment Haman seeks to destroy Mordechai, the King is seeking to honor him.  In the end, the enemy’s plan to destroy the Jews is turned on its head and God’s people triumph.  The central message of the Book of Esther is that what appears to us as chance is completely guided by God. 

We also need to see the hidden nature of God at work today.  He is at work in our lives on good days and bad. Even in the darkness of our times, God is working behind the scenes, just as he did in the story of Esther.  He will accomplish a great redemption and save his people from the hand of the one seeking to destroy us.  And that, my friends, is something to celebrate.

Judy