Haman hanged - a reversal

Most of the ideas in the post come from a sermon by Pete Wilkinson, St Ebbes, Oxford entitled "Two Banquets"

Haman in One Night with the King

Those familiar with the story of the Jewish woman Esther who finds herself Queen of the Persian Empire, will know that Haman is the villain of the story. He is proud and evil and meets his just deserts in one of the most ironically satisfying reversal tales in the Bible. We cheer to see Haman leading Mordecai the Jew, his sworn enemy, on the king's horse like a common slave and proclaiming how much the king honours his rival. We cheer too when we see him hanged on the very gallows he had had built to hang this same enemy. This is a story of evil defeated and good being victorious. It's the way we expect things should be.

In this morning's 9.45 service at St Ebbe's, the speaker, Pete Wilkinson put something of a different spin on this story - one I've never thought of before. Yes Haman is the bad guy. But to what extent is Haman a picture of us? He exemplifies the human condition apart from God. Desperately wicked and fully absorbed in his own self-promotion and exultation, are we really that different from him? Pride is a quintessential expression of human sin. It was pride that caused Adam and Eve to desire to eat the fruit from the tree of  the Knowledge of Good and Evil; the pride that the fruit would make them like God so that they would no longer need to submit to him. And pride leads us to many of our our other sins - the belief that we are the most important person in the world and therefore have the right to do whatever we want, regardless of it's consequences.

When we look at ourselves in the light of Haman and his end, we may wonder: "Is there then any hope for us?" Haman's sins did find him out, what then of us?

The answer, however is that there is hope. Though we recognise the justice in Haman's story, it is not the most powerful reversal story in the Bible. There is another, more significant, in it's apparent injustice.

When Xerxes has Haman hanged he is careful to protect his own reputation. Esther's accusation against him is that he is planning the massacre of her people, but since Xerxes played a role in authorising that massacre, he accuses Haman instead of assaulting his wife (a charge it seems is only partially true). In this way the King punishes Haman justly, but protects his own reputation.

The other story, the one that brings hope for us Hamans, also involves a hanging of sorts. A hanging on a Roman cross. In this story, the king does not seek to protect his own reputation, but, being this time completely innocent, he takes the punishment that we the Hamans deserved. This reversal is one in which the just man is hanged so that the guilty may go free.

Looking at it from this point of view, it seems all wrong. It is, but the story doesn't end there. Because it wasn't just some good king that took the death penalty on the evil Haman's part; it was God himself in human flesh, in the person of Jesus. He wasn't only a good king, but was completely holy. In his holiness, the grave could not hold him and he rose again after three days, not only securing freedom for a world full of Hamans, but defeating the evil and need for death that all those Hamans possessed. When we acknowledge that we are among those Hamans, we come to understand the undeserved grace that is showered on us through this reversal. To all who accept this substitution, we receive not only life, but the power stop being Hamans. 

When we look on how the one deserving of all honour did not seek his own glory but humiliated himself, we begin to realise just how great this God is. With this new view, and with his spirit in us, we can't help but see the folly of our pride and begin to humble ourselves before him. Unlike Haman, we have a happier ending. Our life does not end on the gallows as we deserve, but we have the opportunity to repent and start a new life where honour goes to the one who deserves it! Not how's that for a reversal?

Secure in His hands

We had a wonderful Church service this morning. So much happened, I can't even recount it all. It was lots of little things that people said - the Spirit of God was moving.

The missionary Patrick Mulenga, shared with us a little of what the Lord has been doing in their church and then recounted the amazing story of how he was brought back from the brink of death that he might continue to serve the Lord. Glenn shared with us some small lessons from the lives of David and Solomon.

One of the most amazing things he pointed out is that when David ask if he could build a house - a temple - for the Lord, he was told by Nathan the prophet, "The Lord declares that he will make a house for you—a dynasty of kings! For when you die and are buried with your ancestors, I will raise up one of your descendants, your own offspring, and I will make his kingdom strong. He is the one who will build a house—a temple—for my name. And I will secure his royal throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son." (2 Sam 7:11-14a, NLT)

I always thought the prophesy was about Solomon, and it was, but it's also, more importantly, about Jesus, David's descendant who would "build the temple" three days after it was destroyed. Wow!

But before we even got to this part of the service, there was something else that spoke to me on a personal level, and it was in two of the songs which had been selected for us to sing. I share them below and what they meant to me...
__________________________________________________________________________

As I head off to Oxford in three months time, there is a lot for me to think and worry about. I am both excited and scared of everything that has to happen, and has to be done, and of what it will be like when I'm there. My fears are few, but real. The one is general paranoia that something will go wrong before I even get there. That an Icelandic volcano will erupt, cutting me off from Europe, or worse, leaving me stranded in some place like Dubai. I also fear how I will handle the cold and rain, after living in sunny sub-tropical climes my whole life.

Another of my fears is deeper, more spiritual. I've heard stories, enough to make this fear real - will my faith be enough to sustain me when I am off on my own, in an unknown place among unknown people? I've lived under the watchful eye of parents and church my entire life. Now I enter, the "big bad world", alone with temptations aplenty and those to hold me accountable few. I like to think that it will, that I am strong enough. I survived teenagehood and a secular university unscathed. I have not yet fallen down the path of rebellion which many Christians wander along at some point in their lives, if even for a little while. And so this continual fear hangs over my head every time I'm presented with a new challenge in my life. Will this be the time that I fall?

Only time will show my faith for what it really is, but I ask all my friends to uphold me in prayer. It seems almost a selfish request, that I should be spared when others aren't. Yet surely there is not harm in it: May I be spared once again.

As we sang this chorus this morning, I found the hope and strength I needed to allay these fears for a time, real though they may be:

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

If I rest on the far side of the sea,

Even there, your arms will keep me warm,

Even there, your loving hand is sure to guide me.

The wings of a plane; an island, not only on the far side of the sea, but of the world; a place that will be far colder than anything I am used to. The words could not be more appropriate, had someone written the song especially for me. And what makes them extra special, is that the first two lines come straight from scripture (Psalm 139).I think this ought to become my key refrain, the words I say as I wake and sleep.

From your Spirit where can I go,

From your presence where can I flee,

You are there in the oceans far below,

I go up to the heavens,

You are there beside me.

You have searched and you see,

All of me, all of me,

I will give willingly,

All of me, all of me.

Oh, may those last two lines be true. Not only for the next two years, but for the rest of my life.

The next song we sang was equally appropriate:

I'm so secure,

You're here with me,

You stay the same,

Your love remains,

Here in my heart

So close, I believe

You're holding me now

In your hands I belong,

You'll never let me go.

May I feel and know the security I have in the Lord, and may I always stay safe 
in His hands.

Thoughts from Sunday's Sermon

 Exodus 15:22-27 (NKJV, biblegateway.com)

So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah.And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” So he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.

As Christians we sometimes go through difficult times. Things are looking good; God may have just performed a miraculous miracle, then suddenly we find ourselves out in the wilderness and God seems to have abandoned us. We might find ourselves, is the Israelites did, in a place like Mara - a place which seems to promise refreshment and relief, yet when we bend down to take a sip of water, we find that it's a fraud. The water looks good to drink, but it is really bitter.

We go through various bitter periods in life. They hurt us and sting us, and we can't understand why God would allow this to happen. But he knows what he is doing. The Lord was teaching the Israelites to depend on him and not what the Wilderness offered. It was only he who could make the bitter sweet. And he did - in the most unexpected way.

So he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. 

A tree? The Lord told Moses to throw a tree in the water to make it sweet? Okay, maybe the translation's not quite accurate and it was a large branch - or a small sapling. But either way, God used something that seemed quite arbitrary, quite ordinary to remove the bitterness and replace it with sweetness. He has a habit of doing that. Of using the most unexpected person or event, to help us through our bitter experiences. It's a way of showing both his power and his love for us. The tree itself possessed no special properties with which it could sweeten water. This showed the Israelites that it was not nature, nor Moses' wisdom that cured the waters, but God's mighty strength which could use something useless, possibly even dead, to achieve his purpose.

There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am

the LORD who heals you.”

This was not the last test the Israelites would face, and not the last they would fail. Thank God that, as with the Israelites, he is willing to forgive us when we fail these tests. That despite the way we grumble at him, he still steps in, when the time is right, and makes the water's sweet.

A final thought. Perhaps it was not coincidence that the Lord used a tree to sweeten the waters of Mara. This was not the last time he would use a tree. There was another tree, this time a truly lifeless piece of wood, that would be used not only to sweeten the worst bitterness in our lives - that brought about by sin and death - but to bring life to all who will believe.

God's word is alive, and very little ever happens by coincidence. May the Waters of Mara remind us of this as we go through our daily life, with it's bitterness, difficulties and unexpected blessings.

Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters.