Esther 4:13-16

And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: ‘Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews.For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?’

Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai: ‘Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!’

Esther, an orphaned Jewish girl miraculously elevated to queen, was confronted with the terrifying reality that her privileged position was not for her comfort alone but was sovereignly orchestrated by God to serve as the instrument of salvation for her people. The themes of divine timing, royal identity, hiddenness and revelation, vicarious sacrifice, and the salvation of a people all converge and are consummated in Christ, revealing Esther 4:14 to be a microcosm of the grand narrative of redemption.

The concept of being raised for such a time as this speaks directly to the divine appointment and perfect timing of God’s redemptive plan. Esther’s rise was a strategically timed move by a sovereign God to preserve the line of the Messiah. The entire New Testament attests to the fact that Jesus Christ’s advent occurred at the divinely appointed moment in history. Paul explicitly states, But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons (Galatians 4:4-5). Like Esther, Jesus was born for a specific, critical moment to confront the ultimate crisis: the eternal condemnation of humanity under the power of sin and Satan.

Esther held the title of queen, yet her identity as a Jewess was hidden until the critical moment. Jesus, too, possessed a dual identity. He was the true King, the Son of David, yet His kingship was hidden during His earthly ministry. He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows. His royal power was veiled in humility, not to be revealed fully until His sacrificial work was complete. Paul articulates this profound paradox in Philippians 2:6-11, describing how Christ, being in very nature God, humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross, only to be thereafter exalted and given the name which is above every name. Esther was elevated to royalty to save her people; Christ, the eternal King, humbled Himself from royalty to save His people.

Mordecai’s warning: For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish; presents a choice between self-preservation and vicarious sacrifice. Esther’s response, And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish! embodies a willingness to die for the salvation of others. This foreshadows Christ’s mission. Jesus repeatedly foretold that He must go to Jerusalem to suffer, die, and be raised again. He declared that He came to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28).

Unlike Esther, who risked death, Jesus came with the explicit purpose of dying. He willingly embraced the silence that would lead to His sacrificial death, knowing that through it, relief and deliverance would indeed arise from another place, not from another human agent, but from the power of God Himself in the resurrection. Esther’s potential death secured temporal salvation; Christ’s actual death secured eternal salvation for all who believe.

Esther’s actions saved the Jewish people in Persia from physical destruction, thereby preserving the messianic line and allowing the story of redemption to continue. Jesus Christ’s work achieved a much greater deliverance. He did not come to save from a temporary, political threat but from the eternal, spiritual threat of sin and death. His death and resurrection secured salvation not just for one ethnic group in one group, but for people from every tribe tongue and people and nation (Revelation 5:9). He is the royal Saviour who willingly enters the king’s court, not of Ahasuerus, but of the Creator of the heaven and earth itself, to intercede on behalf of His people.

Jesus Christ was born, lived, died, and rose again for such a time as this, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18-19).

Pray that:

• You may recognize that what you have is not for your comfort alone, but for divine purpose and the good of others.
• You may completely depend on God’s strength and wisdom, not your own.
• When fear or the desire to ‘fit in’ tempts you to remain silent, you may be reminded that you are a representative of Christ the King, called to live and speak according to His truth.

Soli Deo Gloria – to God alone be the glory! Rev. Luke Haisa