ODJ: show your colours

November 23, 2015 

READ: Esther 4:10-17 

If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this? (v.14).

When I was asked to present the flag to the daughter of a Navy veteran at her father’s funeral, I readily accepted. As a veteran myself, and the son of a veteran, I knew the poignant power of a flag-draped coffin.

The day of the funeral, I introduced myself to the bugle player. We talked of our military experience and then I mentioned that I had written a devotional article about the song “Taps” (played at American military funerals). “I thought you might be a believer!” he exclaimed.

I felt gratified! But I wondered: how many times have observers of my life not had a clue that Jesus is important to me? So often I choose to blend quietly into the background.

In the book of Esther, it’s possible that the exiles from Judah had so effectively assimilated into their captors’ pagan culture that God is never mentioned throughout the book. Queen Esther herself had kept her Jewish identity a secret.

And yet, the pivot point of the story is Esther’s identification with her people—the remnant of the people of God. Haman’s genocidal plans against the Jews had just been decreed, and Esther was uniquely situated to intervene, but not without great personal risk (Esther 4:11). Her uncle Mordecai told her, “If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” (v.14). Esther took the bold step to approach the king.

—Tim Gustafson

365-day-plan: Romans 12:1-21