God in the Shadows

An ancient story sheds light on a modern problem.

When is God going to show up?

When is God going to intervene?

Is God going to show up?

Is God there?

If God is real, why doesn't my experience look anything like what I read in the Bible?

If Jesus is alive, why do we experience figurative and literal death?

If the Holy Spirit sits inside of us, why does our life seem so ordinary and unchanged?

Where is God in the midst of this (whatever this might be)?

Sometimes, for those of us with faith in God, it seems like God is hiding in the shadows, and maybe we've begun to wonder if this whole God-thing we call Christianity is real at all. Or maybe you're someone who is close to concluding that God isn't hiding in the shadows because God just isn’t there at all. Maybe you've given up on faith in an invisible God, because if he were really there, he wouldn't slink into the shadows, he would show up in the light.

Wherever you are on the spectrum of faith-less to faith-full, I think the story-book of Esther was written for you. I call it a story-book not because it is untrue, but because it's a small book with a big story, a masterpiece telling the true tale of a orphaned foreign girl who becomes the queen of the most powerful king on earth. From there she interrupts forever the trajectory of human history.

It's a story of a minority man who burdens himself with raising his little cousin when her parents die, being to her a father, guiding her, and becoming himself a major player the story of the world.

It's a story of a powerful, unpredictable, excessive, party-boy king, with more power and money than he knows what to do with, who can't even lead his own wife, let alone his expansive kingdom.

It's a story of a manipulative, racist, power-craving politician, who manages to plan the mass murder and extinction of a minority population—the people who had been the once-favored but now apparently forgotten family of a foreign God.

It's a story of sweetly satisfying irony and reversals of destiny.

The Main Characters, in Order of Appearance

The story of Esther might be the most delightfully and expertly crafted story in the Scripture, a masterpiece of ancient literature. The author shows his or her literary technique by narrating a tale that has five main characters.

Ahasuerus, the spoiled, party-boy king of Persia.

Mordecai, the son of exiled Jews, who has taken the responsibility to care for his orphaned cousin.

Esther, the young and beautiful orphaned Jewish girl who becomes a courageous and risk-taking queen.

Haman, the racist, manipulative political power-grabber, who plots the extinction of an entire minority populations because of one man’s refusal to honor him.

But the fifth character is the character at the beginning and end of the story, a character whose name the author excludes completely. Above all, Esther is a story starring God in the shadows, God at work in every detail of life, even and especially when he seems to be hiding in the darkened places. God, Yahweh, the God of the Jews, the Creator and Sustainer of all things. With literary brilliance, the storyteller tells us the true tale of Esther the Queen from the perspective of the grimy roads of urban Susa in ancient Persia. It’s a story without the traumatic and obvious intervention of Yahweh, but a story that Yahweh was writing through the seemingly lucky and coincidental events of the story.

It’s a story we should listen to, and listen well.

Some Implications, in No Particular Order

Creativity and Art

The story-book of Esther has implications for the way we pursue creativity and art. Imagine a Jewish writer composing a historical narrative about God's intervention without mentioning God one time in over 3000 words. Perhaps this implies that our creativity and art does not have to be explicitly Christian to be Christ-centered and Christ-honoring. If you're an artist or creative, you can honor God by pursuing your craft as a Christian, instead trying to make your craft Christian. You can write stories, paint portraits, compose songs, and sculpt statues with the freedom of the grace of Christ. The pattern is here in Esther.

Race Relations

The story has huge implications for race relations. As we all know, for nearly a decade racial tensions have been bubbling toward the surface of society. In Esther we see a strategically placed leader from a minority population called to speak truth to power. In Haman, we see a man who projects his hatred of the actions of one minority man into hatred for the entire population. Esther confronts us with our tendency to do the same, our inclination to make assumptions about people who are different than we are, our penchant for speaking and feeling about groups as unknown masses instead of individuals and friends. In Esther, we see God's heart for those in the margins, the poor, the immigrant, the oppressed.

Fasting and Feasting

Esther has implications for how we celebrate. One of the purposes of the author was to describe the origins of the Jewish feast of Purim. Pur comes from the ancient Persian word for lot or dice, because Haman cast lots to determine when he would extinguish the Jews through genocide. The date, the 13th of Adar, has become a day of fasting for the Jews in anticipation of the 14th which is the feast of Purim. On that day, the Jewish people recite the story of Esther, giving gifts, and donating to the poor. As Christians we too find great reason for celebration, as God in Esther preserves his people, and thereby the Messiah, the Savior.

Inflection Points and Critical Moments

Esther has huge implications for those at a crossroads moments in their lives. It shows that God sovereignly and providentially ordains circumstances, and he writes our stories to climax in these critical moments where we have to decide whether we risk death (whether literal or figurative) in consecrated courage, risking with the hope that God has providentially positioned us for such a time as this. From the view on the ground, all the events can seem to be lining up against us, but that's where the story of Esther reminds us: if God has been standing offstage in the shadows, he has all the more been directing every event, writing the lines of every character even as they speak them, providentially superintending the intentions of human characters.

Ahasuerus and Haman, Mordecai and Esther were not the primary characters in their story. Yahweh, the God of creation and covenant was the primary character. In grace for his people and in judgment for their enemies, none of these characters were alone. Neither are we. God is with us, maybe for a time hidden in the shadows, yet he aims to rewrite the seemingly inevitable future.

If you feel like God is so hidden in the shadows that maybe he was never there at all, Esther reminds you that he is there, he has not left you. His love for you is strong, so strong enough that he tends to do his best work in the darkest places. He loves to bring strength out of weakness, he loves to turn the tables so that no one can say it was anyone but him. He can take the exact things that seem to be aligning for our defeat and use those same things for our future faithfulness and fruitfulness. He may even now be writing a story like Esther’s, a story of divine destiny, providential positioning and consecrated courage.

Shorter Than Your Favorite TV Show

I want to encourage you to take some time this afternoon, or this week, and sit down and read Esther completely without interruption. It's a short story, probably shorter than your favorite TV show. Let the story grab you and delight you, as you let God shape your heart, your mind, your imagination, and your faith through it.

Let me know in the comments what hits you as you read.