1. "We await a savior. Which means that right now we wait. We wait. The preeminent posture of a Christian is to wait. We live with a promise of the second story, a promise of rescue to the second story, a rescue for which we wait. And how well we wait is perhaps the most crucial factor in how well we live."

2. "I don't think very many Christians just wake up one morning and decide that they are done waiting for God's rescue. Instead, every morning they wake up finding they're relying on his promise of rescue a little bit less. That, my friends, is the danger for those who wait."

3. "One danger of assimilation for the Christian is that we invest most of our hope in things like work and family or both. And since our lives tend to follow our hopes, when we do that, our lives begin to look very little different from the world around us. While work and family are wonderful stewardships, they are terrible objects of your hope."

4. "You may have seen video of those emperor penguins in Antarctica trying to survive the depths of winter by huddling together. Don't be the penguin stuck on the outside. Burrow yourself into the web of relationships in this church so that your faith can warm ours and ours can warm yours."

5. "Haman's dead. The wicked witch is dead. Don't bet on him. And we should be doing the same thing. Satan has been defeated at the cross. The world, the flesh and the devil are all going down. Don't bet on them. Preaching the gospel to your friends and neighbors, the gospel of God's promised rescue, is not an onerous duty. It's just common sense."

6. "Though this holy war is unique to these circumstances, it does provide an important principle in Esther: blood is the price of the peace that matters most, because peace between sinners and a just God cannot ever come at the expense of justice. Justice never comes cheap."

7. "Forgiveness as an alternative to justice is not sustainable, because eventually justice, ignoring forgiveness, collapses under its own weight. The power of real forgiveness is recognition of who secures justice, because God has promised justice, whether through Christ for those who are his or on Judgment Day."

8. "Esther is a story of everything going exactly right by impossible chance, because Esther is the story of God, who remains hidden at work at every juncture. Consider all the chances of your life, both good and bad. One day when you stand before the Lord, you will see not Purim, but Providence, and you will praise him for his inscrutable wisdom."

9. "The danger for those who wait is that they assimilate and the price they pay is joy. But my friends, Christ is coming again. He is coming to rescue us from sin and from suffering, from despair and from death."

10. "From the past, appreciate what God has done. From the present, celebrate that God has made us his own. From the future, remember the future that God has promised. Appreciate, celebrate, anticipate: three verbs that summarize the festival of Purim, that summarize the Lord's Supper, and that form a chronological compass to guide our own lives if we would wait but not assimilate."

Observation Questions

1. In Esther 8:3–6, what actions does Esther take before King Ahasuerus, and what exactly does she ask him to do about Haman’s decree?
2. According to Esther 8:8–11, what authority does the king give to Mordecai and Esther, and what are the main provisions of the new edict written in the king’s name?
3. How are Mordecai and the Jews described in Esther 8:15–17, and what responses do we see from both the Jews and the surrounding peoples?
4. In Esther 9:1–4, what happens on the appointed day when both decrees take effect, and how is the “reverse” described?
5. What repeated detail do you notice in Esther 9:10, 15, and 16 about the Jews’ treatment of the plunder, and in what locations is this mentioned?
6. In Esther 9:20–22 and 9:27–28, what does Mordecai instruct the Jews to do each year, what name is given to these days, and what reasons are given for keeping them?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it important that the first edict in Esther 8:8 “cannot be revoked,” and how does the second edict function alongside it rather than canceling it? What does this teach about justice in the book?
2. How does the reversal described in Esther 8:15–17 and 9:1–4 (from mourning to joy, from threatened to honored) illustrate God’s hidden providence, even though his name is never mentioned?
3. In light of Haman being called “the Agagite” and the Jews’ refusal to take plunder in Esther 9:10, 15, and 16, how does this episode connect to earlier Bible stories about Amalek and holy war (e.g., 1 Samuel 15)?
4. What does the institution of Purim in Esther 9:20–22, 27–28 reveal about the role of remembrance and annual celebration in helping God’s people live faithfully in later generations?
5. How do the closing verses (Esther 10:1–3) portray Mordecai, and in what ways does the sermon suggest that Mordecai points forward to Jesus as a “true and better Mordecai”?

Application Questions

1. The sermon highlighted that “the danger for those who wait is that they assimilate.” Where do you see yourself tempted to look for quicker “rescues” in this life (career, family, comfort, reputation) instead of patiently waiting on God’s promised rescue?
2. When you compare your hopes and daily priorities with those of your non‑Christian friends or coworkers, in what ways do they look similar, and what might that reveal about where your deepest hope is actually placed?
3. The preacher summarized a Christian posture as “appreciate, celebrate, anticipate.” Which of these (remembering past grace, celebrating your identity in Christ now, anticipating future rescue) is weakest in your life right now, and what specific step could strengthen it this week?
4. How can you more intentionally “huddle” with other believers—through membership, small groups, hospitality, or the Lord’s Supper—so that your hope in God’s future rescue is warmed rather than cooled by isolation?
5. Is there an area of hidden sin, bitterness, or unforgiveness where you have been “mocking” God’s justice (Galatians 6:7) or resisting his call to repent or forgive? What concrete action (confession, conversation, accountability) could you take in the coming days to respond obediently?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Philippians 3:17–21 — Paul reminds believers that their true citizenship is in heaven and that they “await a Savior,” echoing the sermon’s theme of waiting for rescue without assimilating to this world.
2. Hebrews 6:13–20 — This passage explains how God swore by himself to confirm his promise, giving us a “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul,” like the firm rescue promise contrasted with Ahasuerus’ shaky decrees.
3. Ephesians 2:1–10 — Here we see the great reversal from death to life “by grace,” paralleling Esther 9’s “reverse” and showing how our rescue has already begun in Christ.
4. Hebrews 9:11–28 — This text teaches that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, and it shows how Jesus’ blood secures true peace and rest, in contrast to the temporary, bloody peace of Esther 9.
5. Revelation 19:6–9 — John’s vision of the marriage supper of the Lamb portrays the final, joyful feast to which the Lord’s Supper and Esther’s Purim both ultimately point, completing God’s rescue and rest for his people.

Sermon Main Topics

Waiting for God’s rescue without assimilating to the world

Rescue promised

Rescue begun

Rescue commemorated

Living in the way of Esther as we wait for final rescue

Detailed Sermon Outline

Do you believe that reality is a house with one story or two? So asked the poet Chad Walsh. The first story is the reality we can see, the reality we can sense. God, on the other hand, is on the second story, waiting for us, Walsh writes. And indeed, he has a habit of making unscheduled forays down to the first floor, though not in a systematic way that leads itself to scientific verification.

Great areas of human experience begin to make sense once we realize that reality exists on both stories. The sense of beauty, the fact of love, they make sense once we understand their origin in the second story. If you believe the second story is real, Walsh says, you are not in the least denying the painstaking inventory that the scientists have conducted on the first floor.

But if you deny the second floor, you have to reject most of these experiences that are most overwhelmingly real in your own life, like the objectivity of beauty or the beauty of love. Most of the things he says that make you human.

Now, I assume this morning most of us here are two-story believers. Though if you've come today as a single story skeptic, I'd like to make sure you feel welcome here. And even for us two-storyers, we must admit that life here on the first story can get quite ugly, can't it? A quick glance at your favorite news feed will demonstrate that fact. We exist on the first floor of a two-story house, but we hope we need not stay here forever.

The Christian hope is salvation, something most of us consider to be an event in the past, which it is in part, but which the Bible also tells us is something yet to come. We live in hope of rescue from this painful first-floor existence. As the apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:20, Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We await a Savior, which means that right now, we wait. We wait.

The preeminent posture of a Christian is to wait. We have moments of transcendence when the second story feels very real. We have these moments, but for the most part, we don't get to see the second story. We live with a promise of the second story, a promise of rescue to the second story, a rescue for which we wait.

In how well we wait is perhaps the most crucial factor in how well we live. Because waiting is inseparably bound up with faith. If you think about it, an inability to wait well is behind most sins, from anger to immorality to greed to envy, even laziness if you think about it. Behind discontent and discord and bitterness. And on the positive side, an ability to wait well is what Paul describes later in the book of Philippians as the secret of being content in any and every circumstance.

When we tire of waiting for rescue, what do we do? We look elsewhere for rescue. We look to the promises of this world that offer a faster timetable without the cost of waiting on God's rescue. We become like the world, in a word, we assimilate. The danger for those who wait is that they assimilate.

They become like this world. Jesus stated that same danger with a different analogy. You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything. I don't think very many Christians just wake up one morning and decide that they are done waiting for God's rescue.

Instead, every morning they wake up, finding they're relying on his promise of rescue a little bit less. That, my friends, is the danger for those who wait. So, as God's people, how can we wait for God's rescue but not assimilate? That's what brings us to these closing chapters of the book of Esther, which you'll find page 414 of the Bibles and the chairs and pews around you. These chapters really are the falling action after the roller coaster ride we enjoyed last week.

They're not as dramatic, but they are crucial to understanding this book. Esther was written to Jews scattered across the Persian Empire some four and a half centuries before Jesus Christ. Jews at risk of becoming really nothing more than Persian. They were at risk of assimilating. But as we see in our passage today, this book was written just as much to their children and grandchildren and later generations who themselves were at risk of disappearing into this world.

And because that is also our danger, this book is also written to us. It's these chapters in Esther that give us the festival of Purim. And that's very significant for understanding the book of Esther. Esther without Purim, I think, would be an inspiring story that might help us to make the right decisions when, like Esther, we come across such a time as this. But we all know that waiting well isn't about just a few big moments of life.

It much more is a way of life. So here in the closing chapters of Esther, centering on that festival of Purim, the Holy Spirit makes that translation for us. From the events of Esther to the way of Esther. So how can you wait but not assimilate? Esther chapters 8 through 10 answers this challenge in three different parts.

It describes a rescue promised in chapter 8, a rescue begun in chapter 9, 19 verses of chapter 9, and a rescue commemorated Verses 9 through 20, sorry, verses 9 and chapter, sorry, verses 20 and chapter 9 through chapter 10. Rescue promised, rescue begun, rescue commemorated. I'm not going to take too much time to review the first seven chapters of Esther. But if you come back next week, we're going to do the whole book in one sermon. So you can see Esther in all of its glorious wonder and intrigue.

Esther, Jewish orphan elevated to Persian queen, has, by this time, at great personal risk, petitioned the king to revoke the decree of Haman, second in command to the king, which he wrote in the king's name to annihilate all the Jews. By now Haman has been executed. Two months have passed, and still Haman's genocidal decree looms.

So what happens? Let me start reading in chapter 8 verse 3 where we see the background for our first point, rescue promised.

Then Esther spoke again to the king. She fell at his feet and wept and pleaded with him to avert the evil plan of Haman the Agagite and the plot that he had devised against the Jews. When the king held out the golden scepter to Esther, Esther rose and stood before the king. And she said, if it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and if the thing seems right before the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let an order be written to revoke the letters devised by Haman, the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the provinces of the king. For how can I bear to see the calamity that is coming to my people?

Or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?

Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, 'Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows because he intended to lay hands on the Jews. But you may write as you please with regard to the Jews, in the name of the king and seal it with the king's ring. For an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's ring cannot be revoked.' the king's scribes were summoned at that time in the third month which is the month of Sivan, on the 23rd day. And an edict was written according to all that Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews, to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces, to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language, and also to the Jews in their script and their language. And he wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus, sealed with the king's signet ring.

Then he sent letters by mounted couriers riding on swift horses that were used in the king's service, bread from the royal stud, saying that the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, children and women included, and to plunder their goods on one day. Throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus on the 13th day of the 12th month, which is the month of Adar. A copy of what was written was to be issued as a decree in every province being publicly displayed to all peoples, and the Jews were to be ready on that day to take vengeance on their enemies. So the couriers mounted on their swift horses that were used in the king's service rode out hurriedly, urged by the king's command, and the decree was issued in Susa, the citadel. Then Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal robes of blue and white, with a great golden crown and a robe of fine linen and purple, and the city of Susa shouted and rejoiced.

The Jews had light and gladness and joy and honor, and in every province and in every city, wherever the king's command and his edict reached, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a feast and a holiday, and many from the peoples of the country declared themselves Jews, for fear of the Jews had fallen on them.

Haman's decree, we read in chapter three, was in the first month of the Persian year, and everything that's happened since then, Mordecai's mourning, Esther's courage, Haman's humiliation, Esther's feast, Haman's execution, took place over just a few days. Now two months have passed, and the king has done nothing about Haman's decree, some king. In one sense, the battle has been won, but God's people remain under a sentence of death. And so Esther once again risks her own life by going unbidden to the king's court. And once again, verse 4, the king shows her favor.

She asks that Haman's order be revoked, verse 5. But as we've been told before in the book of Esther, and I'm reminded again in verse 8, an order written in the king's name and sealed with the king's ring cannot be revoked.

And as now seems typical for this self-centered Persian despot, the king seems quite uninterested in fixing this problem that, frankly, his own disinterest had caused in the first place. But he's very happy to hand his authority to another who will do his job for him, which this time is Esther's Uncle Mordecai. And what Mordecai produces is an edict that replicates Haman's original from chapter three in almost every respect, from the wording of the decree to the exact way it's to be sounded out through the empire. But now, instead of ordering that the Jews be destroyed, killed, and annihilated, as was in Haman's decree, we read verse 11 that the Jews be permitted to defend themselves and to destroy, kill, and annihilate any who might attack them. With the parallels to Haman's decree reaching even to the women and children of those attackers and the right to plunder their goods.

And our section ends not with Mordecai in sackcloth like he was in chapter 4, not even with Mordecai temporarily transfigured into royalty as he was in chapter 6, but verse 16, permanently exalted in royal robes.

They note the impact on the Jews. Not only do they have light and gladness and joy and honor, verse 16, not only do they have a feast and a holiday, verse 17, but end of verse 17, even others declare themselves to be Jews. So we have gone from an edict that threatened to wipe out the Jews to a situation where they stick out with pride and prestige and joy. Remember, in the book of Esther, the Jews faced two threats. There was the threat of extermination, to be sure, but there was also the threat of assimilation, like we saw with Esther and Mordecai in chapter two.

So you see, in God's providential hand, the evil plot of Haman has been turned exactly on its head, pulling the Jewish people out of the woodwork, recovering their distinct identity, their saltiness, as Jesus would later later say, Just as God is about to fall silent for the 400 years that lead to Jesus. That, I think, may be, in fact, the greatest irony in this irony-loving book of Esther. But more about that next week. Chapter 9, verse 1, is going to pick up the narrative in the 12th month on the calendar. Nine months later, when these two competing decrees that cannot be revoked, one by Haman, one by Mordecai, both come alive on the same day, the 13th day of the 12th month, which is the month of Adar.

Nine months for opposing decrees to sit inactive, pregnant with potential. Nine months for every citizen in Persia, nearly half the world's population, to decide what they will do on that day, nine months to choose a side, nine months from promise to fulfillment. And we also live between promise and fulfillment, don't we? God has promised rescue for his people, punishment for his enemies. He has promised that, but fulfillment still waits.

What side are you on?

That's a very important question this morning, I think, especially for those who are not Christians. So maybe you've come this morning because you find religion intriguing, or frankly, you're just being kind to the Christian who invited you here. But you should know that the people of Esther's day had an option which is not available to you. That's the neutral option.

Jesus himself said in Matthew 12 that whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. James 4:4 says that whoever makes himself an enemy, a friend of the world, makes himself to be an enemy of God. Why is that? Because not living for Jesus defames Jesus.

So, like these people of Esther's day, you and I also live under a sentence, an irrevocable sentence of death, though its irrevocability is not grounded in the arbitrary Persian bureaucracy, but in the justice of Almighty God. The wages of sin, Romans 6:23, is death. A good God A really good and just God will not overlook your sin against him, for then he would cease to be good.

And yet, to finish that verse in Romans 6, the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus died in our place to take on the wages of sin that we had earned, the eternal death and hell that we deserved, and he commands all people everywhere to turn from their sin, to put their faith in him, to follow him. That is how you can be forgiven of your sin and reconciled to your God. Yet he does not leave neutrality as an option. He cannot leave neutrality as an option.

Either your life is lived for him or it is lived in spite of him, which means it is lived against him.

So, my friend, choose which side you are on. Don't discover one day that you made that choice by trying to avoid it. Choose which side you were on and choose life. Come to Jesus Christ by faith and trust His promise of life.

As an Esther 8, our rescue has been promised, but even Christians can fail to trust that promise as we should. I don't think that failure very often looks like a sudden denial of God's promised rescue. It's more like beginning to cease relying on His promised rescue. So think for a moment of the things that you are hoping for today. Call them to mind: a vacation, a marriage, a baby, retirement, a cure, a friend, a break, a raise, whatever it is, good things to hope for.

But I want you to consider how much hope are you investing in those hopes? 1 Corinthians 15:19 says that if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. The Christian life should make no sense whatsoever if God's promised rescue is not sure and certain. I wonder how much of our hope we have invested in hopes that it could be fulfilled this side of God's promise. One danger of assimilation for the Christian is that we invest most of our hope in things like work and family and family or both.

And since our lives tend to follow our hopes, when we do that, our lives begin to look very little different from the world around us. But my brothers and sisters, while work and family are wonderful stewardships, they are terrible objects of your hope. Why would you ever invest your ultimate hope in the very two institutions that God has cursed back in Genesis chapter three, cursed so that we will only find our true hope in him? Put your hope in God's eternal rescue. One way you can strengthen that hope is by living life closely with others who believe that rescue is coming.

You may have seen video of those emperor penguins in Antarctica trying to survive the depths of winter by huddling together. Don't be the penguin stuck on the outside. Burrow yourself into the web of relationships in this church so that your faith can warm ours and ours can warm yours.

So put yourself for a moment in the shoes of these people in Esther chapter 8. Nine months. Your friends and neighbors are going back and forth between their options. Ally with Haman, ally with Mordecai. What do you tell them?

Haman's dead. The wicked witch is dead. Don't bet on him. And we should be doing the same thing. Satan has been defeated at the cross.

The world, the flesh, and the devil are all going down. Preaching the gospel to your friends and neighbors, the gospel of God's promised rescue, is not an onerous duty, it's just common sense, love.

And consider how sure and certain the promises of God are. Right? The promised rescue of Esther 8 came from a cruel and self-centered king who cared nothing for justice, and yet his people could still rely on it.

Yet when God wanted His promise of rescue to Abraham, maybe the very same promise that Mordecai remembered in Esther 4, when God wanted that promise to be trusted, Hebrews 6:18 says that God swore by Himself so that we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast Anchor of the soul, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. Amen. May we also trust in God's promised rescue. Because there is a day when that rescue will come, which brings us to Esther chapter 9, our second point, rescue begun.

Let me start reading in verse 1.

Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king's command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred. The Jews gained mastery over those who hated them. The Jews gathered in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to lay hands on those who sought their harm, and no one could stand against them, for fear of them had fallen on all peoples. All the officials in the provinces, all the officials of the provinces, and the satraps and the governors and the royal agents also helped the Jews, for the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them. For Mordecai was great in the king's house, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces, for the man Mordecai grew more and more powerful.

The Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them. In Susa, the citadel itself, the Jews killed and destroyed 500 men, and also killed Parshandatha, and Dela, and Aspatha, and Poratha, and Adalia and Aradatha, and Parmashhta and Arisai and Aridai and Baizeatha, the ten sons of Haman, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, but they laid no hand on the plunder. That very day the number of those killed in Susa the citadel was reported to the king. And the king said to Esther, in Susa the citadel the Jews have killed and destroyed 500 men and also the ten sons of Haman, what then have they done in the rest of the king's provinces? Now, what is your wish?

It shall be granted you. And what further is your request? It shall be fulfilled. And Esau said, if it please the king, let the Jews who are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day's edict, and let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows. So the king commanded this to be done.

A decree was issued in Susa, and the ten sons of Haman were hanged. The Jews who were in Susa gathered also on the 14th day of the month of Adar, and they killed 300 men in Susa, but they laid no hands on the plunder. Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king's provinces also gathered to defend their lives and got relief from their enemies and killed 75,000 of those who hated them, but they laid no hands on the plunder. This was on the 13th day of the month of Adar, and on the 14th day they rested. They made that a day of feasting and gladness.

But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the 13th day and on the 14th and rested on the 15th day, making that a day of feasting and gladness. Therefore, the Jews of the villages who live in the rural towns hold the 14th day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, as a holiday, and as a day in which they send gifts of food to one another. When the day of Haman's edict finally came, verse 1, it says, the reverse occurred. Is that not your own story, my Christian brother or sister? Even when we were dead in our trespasses, Ephesians 2:5, God made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved. And though God is hidden, this reversal once again happens by his evident hand. It says that fear fell on Persia and its leaders, verses 2 and 3. Fell from where? Just as the God who is hidden worked through favor earlier in Esther, now He works through fear.

His hand may be hidden, but He is always at work.

That's the headline message of chapter 9. But I think you have to admit the details are rather disturbing.

Esther asks the king for what? The slaughter of her enemies. The name Esther, remember, comes from the Mesopotamian Ishtar, the goddess of love and war. No Disney princess here. And in verse 13, she asks for more slaughter.

Let the Jews who are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day's edict, and let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows. That is, let the bodies be impaled as a warning to others. This is grisly stuff. The first day of slaughter was defense against attack. But the second day Esther asked for is a day with no more threat of attack than any other.

And as is typical in Esther, there is no explanation, no defense or condemnation of her request. So what do we do with all the bloodshed of chapter 9. Three thoughts. First, should we be more stunned by the extent of the bloodshed or the extent of the hatred that motivated it? After all, the Jews, verse 16 says, were gathering in defense, killing those who hated them.

Verses 1, 5, and 16, those who sought their harm. Verse 2, and where would that threat be more serious than in the citadel of Susa, the pinnacle of power, where it seems there were 800 men who were with Haman against the Jews. Maybe that's why Esther saw that second day as necessary. I honestly don't know how perfectly aligned the actions in Esther were with perfect justice, but I do know that some of us struggle with the Bible's depictions of justice because, frankly, we haven't faced much injustice ourselves. Moses Grandy was a freed slave from the early 1800s who wrote, remembering how during violent thunderstorms, whites hid between their feather beds, but the slaves would go outside and lifting up their hands, thank God, the judgment day was coming at last.

They believed in the day of judgment for those who oppressed them and they had no qualms of imploring God to bring his judgment forward.

A second thing we noticed, something we saw two weeks ago, In chapter 3, you remember Haman was called the Agagite. Since then, he's just been Haman. But here again, if you look at verse 5 in Esther's request, he's once again Haman the Agagite, referring, as you recall from two weeks ago, to his ancestor King Agag of the Amalekites. The Amalekites sought to destroy Israel as they fled Egypt, and in turn God promised that he would one day destroy them. And that destruction was to be a holy war, executing God's judgment at God's direct command.

And because of that, when God called King Saul to this work in 1 Samuel 15, and remember Esther and Mordecai are descendants of King Saul, God insisted that no plunder be taken to show that this was about justice, not about enrichment. Well, Saul loses his throne for disobeying that command. He doesn't kill King Agag, and his soldiers do take the plunder. So even though Mordecai's decree in chapter 8 verse 11 replicated Haman's language exactly in allowing the Jews to plunder their enemies, chapter 9 takes pains to point out in verses 10 and 15 and 16 that the Jews laid no hand on the plunder. It seems that they understood that they were carrying out God's ancient decree against the Agagites.

And what about the women and children? That's less clear. They would have been under God's ban against the Amalekites, so in a book that is notable for departing from the common practice of using men to refer to men and women, verses 12 and 15 refer only to men being killed. So we don't know. We do know this is a holy war, something that is legitimate in Scripture only when commanded directly by God.

As one commentator helpfully explains, the death of Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel, provides the only basis for the cessation of holy war. In the in-filling of the Holy Spirit provides the only power by which one may love one's enemies. And a third note about the bloodiness of this chapter. Though this holy war is unique to these circumstances, it does provide an important principle. In Esther, blood is the price of peace.

And in some important ways, that has not changed. Hebrews 9:22, Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Blood is the price of the peace that matters most because peace between sinners and a just God cannot ever come at the expense of justice. As they say, no justice, no peace. Justice never comes cheap.

I wonder, my Muslim friends here this morning, on what basis you could stay the same. The glory of the Christian gospel is that the blood shed to make peace between us and God is not the blood of Persian enemies, not the blood that we deserve to shed, it is the blood of Jesus Christ, God's own Son, who made peace with us when we were still his enemies. And his blood is hope for peace between humanity as well. I think we normally would say that hope for peace and a world of injustice is found in forgiveness. Right?

Instead of taking revenge, we forgive. But forgiveness as an alternative to justice is not sustainable because eventually justice ignoring forgiveness collapses under its own weight, which is why sometimes conflict keeps reemerging even after earnest attempts to forgive. Or we have icy peace that is honestly more truce than relationship. Forgiveness as an alternative to justice is not sustainable. The power of real forgiveness is recognition of who secures justice because God has promised justice, whether through Christ for those who are his or on Judgment Day, we all know that real forgiveness can feel profoundly unjust.

And so, real forgiveness is only possible when it stares justice in the face and entrusts justice to God, so that even at a horizontal level, without the shedding of the blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.

I titled this First Point: Rescue Begun, which it is for God's people, but the verse is also true. God's enemies, chapter 9, would see this as judgment begun. Because examples of holy war in the Bible are not the exclamation point. They are just a comma, a foretaste, a bringing forward of a small piece of God's final promised judgment as instruments of both hope and warning, a promise of hope that justice will one day be done, but a promise of warning that justice will one day be done to us.

So, my friend, I want you to read Esther 9 as a question. Are you ready for God's justice? On your own, you're not. I remember biking through the eastern plains of Colorado when a massive storm blew up, and I could see way off in the distance about five miles away light glinting off a bridge. And for those five miles, I biked as hard and fast as I could to stay ahead of the storm with its sleet and torrents of rain and hail.

And just as it caught up with me, I got under the bridge. Well, God's judgment is a coming storm because we all deserve his judgment.

And there is a shelter to protect us, but there is only one shelter. That is Jesus Christ, God's own Son. So use God's warnings of coming judgment today so that you might take refuge under Christ. You know, even for those who do take refuge in Christ, these warnings of judgment are helpful, as 1 Peter 4:17 says, judgment begins with the household of God. Or Galatians 6:7, Do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked.

A man reaps what he sows. So my Christian friend, are you living a double life in some way, right now, harboring what you know Christ hates? That type of hypocrisy is another form of assimilation. You may have deceived your friends. You may have deceived your roommates.

You may have deceived your spouse or your children. You may even have deceived yourself. But you will not deceive God. Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked.

A man reaps what he sows. In God's final accounting, the truth of all things will one day lie exposed. So confess your hypocrisy today.

For Esther's original audience, though, this passage served not so much as warning but as comfort. Remember that Esther was written to explain the festival of Purim, which we'll discuss in a bit, when God's people were to remember and celebrate the rescue of Esther 9. For generations to follow then, Esther 9 mattered not merely as an historical event but as a promise. God had rescued, and that means he will rescue. Because God has brought justice, he will bring justice.

That is how we move from Esther's holy war against our enemies to Jesus' command to love our enemies. And that's why I've titled this point not rescue delivered as if it's the end of the story, but rescue begun. Because just as the judgment of Esther nine was a down payment, so its rescue, especially in light of Purim, was also a down payment. The rescue of Esther really culminates in the same rescue that we look to when Jesus Christ returns and vanquishes all of his enemies to reign as the Prince of Peace. So like these people of Esther's day, we also look back to a down payment rescue, Jesus rescuing us at the cross from our sins as a promise of what's to come.

Like the people of Esther's day, we can move forward in hope by looking back to a rescue already begun. Which brings to our third point, rescue commemorated. Let's finish the book of Esther together, beginning in chapter 9 verse 20.

And Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, obliging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and also the 15th day of the same, year by year, as the days in which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month they had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness, and from mourning into a holiday, that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor. So the Jews accepted what they had started to do, and Mordecai written to them, For Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast pur, that is, cast lots, to crush and destroy them. But when it came before the king, he gave orders in writing that his evil plan that he had devised against the Jews should return on its own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. Therefore, they called these days Purim, after the term pur. Therefore, because of all that was written in this letter and of what they had faced in this matter and of what had happened to them, the Jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring, and all who join them, that without fail they would keep these two days according to what was written and at the time appointed every year, that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, and every clan, province, and city, and that these days of Purim should not fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants.

Then Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew gave full written authority confirming this second letter about Purim. Letters were sent to all the Jews to the 127 provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus in words of peace and truth. That these days of Purim should be observed at their appointed seasons, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther obligated them, and as they had obligated themselves and their offspring with regard to their fasts and their lamenting. The command of Esther confirmed these practices of Purim and it was recorded in writing. King Ahasuerus imposed tax on the land and on the coastlands of the sea.

In all the acts of his power and might, and in the full account of the high honor of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia? For Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Ahasuerus, and he was great among the Mordecais and popular with the multitude of his brothers, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace. To all his people.

So Mordecai takes what seems to be a spontaneous celebration of gratitude by the Jews and ordains a continuing remembrance of what God has done, which the people then call Purim. In fact, this is the only Jewish holiday in the Bible not instituted by Moses. The only stipulation Mordecai adds is that they remember the poor. Which is a good reminder of our own priorities. And the name of this festival is suitably ironic.

Purim, plural for the Persian word pur, which means lots, as in casting lots. You might call this the festival of dice. Esther is a story of everything going exactly right by impossible chance.

Because Esther is the story of God who remains hidden at work at every juncture. So yes, it looks like chance. It looks like Purim on the surface, but dig a little deeper and you get not Purim, but providence. Consider all the chances of your life, both good and bad. The failed relationship, the dream job, the sweet friendship, the unexpected financial burden.

One day when you stand before the Lord, you will see not Purim but providence, and you will praise Him for His inscrutable wisdom. Purim continues to be celebrated today. You probably, some of you may know that, some two and a half millennia later. And God's hiddenness continues to be central to the celebration of Purim. Just like Halloween that many in DC will celebrate in a few weeks, Purim is also celebrated in costume, hidden identities because in Esther, God is hidden, hidden yet active.

For some of you, I wonder if that hiddenness of God has been a stumbling block. Maybe you've even looked into the philosophical problem known as divine hiddenness. Well, I hope that Esther serves as an example of God's purposes in veiling himself. After all, the best things in life, like love and contentment, are to be pursued despite being hidden. So why not faith?

Remember the promise Jesus gave us in Matthew 7:7, which presumes hiddenness: Seek, he said, and you shall find. Oh, my friend, he makes good on that promise. So as Christians, what do we do with Purim? It's interesting that though Jesus inherited a rich annual calendar of Jewish holidays, he left us just a weekly calendar with one celebration each and every Sunday of his resurrection from the dead. We see some evidence in the New Testament that for at least some early Jewish Christians, those old habits died hard.

But what Jesus gave us was not Purim and Passover and Tabernacles and Atonement. He gave us Lord's Day. And for the Lord's Day, he gave us our own feast, the Lord's Supper, which is similar to Purim along a number of different dimensions. First, like Purim, the Lord's Supper is a feast. It's a celebration.

Because of God's rescue, Esther's people moved from fasting to feasting. I think that's what verse 31 is referring to. Both the Lord's Supper and Purim are solemn as we look back at the great sacrifice made for us and both should be celebratory. Right? In Purim, the people celebrated what God had done and they celebrated what God was going to do because future rescue is based on the same promises as Esther's rescue.

In the same way as Christians, we draw joy for the present from both the past and the future. Right, our joy comes from looking back with gratitude to what Christ has done and ahead with anticipation for what he will do. Just as I enjoy the week before my wedding in anticipation and week whenever Joan and I enjoy whenever Joan and I celebrate our anniversary in gratitude for the years that the Lord has given to us. You don't need to hold your blessings. To get joy from your blessings.

Joy also comes from blessings that we anticipate when we know that they're coming. So celebrate the Lord's Supper as the feast it is, a celebration of gratitude and anticipation. The God who has cared for you will care for you. In his second similarity, both the Lord's Supper and Purim celebrate rest.

It's very interesting that Purim did not celebrate the day that Israel won this great battle. It celebrated the next day, the first day of their rest, verse 17. God called the Promised Land their rest, but here he's giving them rest even outside the land. In the same way, when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we don't merely remember what Christ did for us.

We celebrate the rest that he has purchased for us. Rest from trying to work our own way into God's good graces. In Scripture, rest is not merely cessation of activity. It's cessation of one kind of activity, work, in order to engage in another, worship, enjoying relationship with God. That's true of the Sabbath in the Old Testament.

It's true from God's perspective, of the day the Sabbath pointed to, the seventh day of creation, it's true of our eternal rest to which the Sabbath points, as we see in Hebrews chapter 4. That's why the Lord's Supper, just like Purim, isn't merely reflection, it's celebration. At this church, I think it's appropriate then when we celebrate the Lord's Supper that we reflect before the bread but we sing before the wine. The Lord's Supper is a remembrance of what Christ has done, and it is a celebration of the rest that we now have with God as a result. And a third similarity.

Both exist to guard us from assimilation. Imperium, it's their people's identity as Jewish that they reaffirm in a holiday that was distinctly their own. In the Lord's Supper, it's our identity as repentant followers of Christ that we affirm. That's one reason why in 1 Corinthians 11, the Lord's Supper is never to be celebrated except when the whole church is gathered. Because as a church, we know each other's sin.

We see each other's repentance. And so the Lord's Supper is a corporate affirmation that each of us continues to walk with Jesus distinct from the world. For both the Persian Jew and the Christian of today, the danger of the wait is that we assimilate. For both Purim and the Lord's Supper, we celebrate that we might not assimilate. Do you see the wisdom of the Lord's Supper?

Centuries before academic research about the benefits of regular gratitude, Christ, mindful of our weakness, as the Belgic Confession says, ordained the Lord's Supper to seal His promises in us to pledge his goodwill and grace toward us and to nourish and sustain our faith. Past, rescue, remembered, future, rescue anticipated. One very simple point of application for you, if you're a member of this church, make it a renewed priority to join us when we celebrate the Lord's Supper together the first Sunday of each month. And as in verse 22, Christ has also turned our sorrow into gladness. Our morning into a holiday.

And he promises so much more to come. So it's appropriate that we celebrate, right? Not a dirge, not a fast, but a feast. A feast in the Lord's Supper that is just the merest of appetizers for the marriage banquet of the Lamb that we will one day join. My Christian brother and sisters, are you enjoying that anticipation?

Or has this world come to feel so much more real than heaven that anticipation is weak and joy is timid? The danger for those who wait is that they assimilate and the price they pay is joy.

But my friends, Christ is coming again. He is coming to rescue us from sin and from suffering, from despair and from death. He is coming, as we read earlier in the service, to put all things under his feet and to to reign in perfect peace. He is the one Mordecai points to in chapter 10. Mordecai was advanced to high honor.

How much more was Jesus Christ? Jesus is the true and better Mordecai. Mordecai stood next to the king of Persia. Jesus stands as the king of kings. Mordecai sought the welfare of his people.

Verse three and in ways so much Fuller and richer Jesus does ours. For the Son of Man, he said, came not to serve, not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mordecai spoke peace to all his people. Esther 10:3, Jesus speaks a peace that is making all nations into his people. That is the rescue that we can commemorate.

At the beginning of the sermon, I pointed out that Esther makes the book of Purim, sorry, the Purim makes the book of Esther not merely about the events of Esther, it makes it about the way of Esther, so that we might wake well in this temporary yet challenging one-story existence.

So what is the way of Esther? Finish by fleshing that out. In a world where the hand of God is hidden, how can we wait on him and not assimilate into the world? Three perspectives, these closing chapters of the book of Esther give us, a perspective from the past, a perspective from the present, a perspective from the future. So from the past, Remember what God has done as a down payment on what he will do in Susa, to be sure, yet so much more at the cross.

From the present, remember who you are as God's distinct called-out people. Just like Esther's people, we also are holy to the Lord. Though it seems like every force of man and nature conspires to beat back what makes us distinct, This is who we are in Christ. And from the future, remember the future that God has promised. He holds out for us not merely relief from our enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil, and even death itself.

He holds out for us rest, rest from strife, rest from weariness, rest from the curse, rest to enjoy Him forever. So, from the past, appreciate what God has done. From the present, celebrate that God has made us His own. From the future, anticipate what God has promised. Appreciate, celebrate, anticipate three verbs that summarize the festival of Purim.

Three verbs that summarize the Lord's Supper, three verbs that form sort of a chronological compass to guide our own lives if we would wait but not assimilate, appreciate, celebrate, anticipate, because though God's hand is often hidden, he is always at his work.

Let's pray. O Lord God in heaven, we are humbled as we consider how much you've given to us.

You have given us Christ's death in the past. You have given us your Spirit in the present to sustain our lives as those who are holy. And Father, you have promised to give us everything in Christ in the future. And you've done that for us. Oh, Father, we pray that as we understand how undeserving we are of those rich, rich blessings, that we would put our hope in you.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.