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^“9 Hathak went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. ¹⁰ Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, ¹¹ ‘All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold sceptre to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.’¹² When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, ¹³ he sent back this answer: ‘Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. ¹⁴ For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?’ NIV

When Esther received her intel from Mordecai, via Hathach, she explained her predicament. No-one, male or female, was to approach the king unbidden, on pain of death. This applied even to the queen, and she had not been sent for in ‘’thirty days’’ (11). The only exception to this case was if the king extended ‘’the gold sceptre’’ (11) to the approaching supplicant, as an act of mercy.

So now it was time for Mordecai to tell Esther the unvarnished truth. ‘Look, if you go to the king you may die. But if you don’t, you will die anyway, and the rest of us! If you try to save your life you will lose it. Don’t think you will escape because you are the queen. God will raise someone up to save the Jews, but you will have missed your destiny.’ He wanted Esther to understand that she had been given her position for this very moment in history. So what was she going to do with it?

‘We may be quite sure that God will carry out his plans – with us, if possible; if not, in spite of us, to our utter loss. We should look upon our position as a sacred trust to be used for others. We are created for good works, which God hath prepared for us to walk in.’ F.B.Meyer: ‘Devotional Commentary’, p.212.

We too would die; we would be consumed by the ‘’blazing fire’’ holiness of our Heavenly King, if He did not extend to us ‘’the gold sceptre’’. But in Jesus He does. Whenever we approach God we may do so with boldness and confidence because of the cross. As a hymn says, ‘Oh the welcome I have found there.’

“When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly. ² But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. ³ In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.⁴ When Esther’s eunuchs and female attendants came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. ⁵ Then Esther summoned Hathak, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why.⁶ So Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. ⁷ Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. ⁸ He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to instruct her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.” NIV

Mordecai knew that he had been the catalyst for Haman wanting to wipe out all the Jewish people. It wasn’t Mordecai’s fault that Haman was as he was, but he must have felt badly about it. Mordecai’s wearing “sackcloth’’ was a genuine expression of his grief. There was no pretence about his actions. But I think it was maybe also a way to get Esther’s attention. He desperately needed to get a message to her to use what influence she had with the king:  “…he told him to urge her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people’’ (8).

I would want to say to the church, ‘Go and do likewise.’

‘Thou art coming to a King,

Large petitions with thee bring.

For His grace and power are such,

None can ever ask too much.’

By the way, thinking about verse 2, I want to add that it’s not like this with our King. As someone wrote:

‘All your anxieties, all your cares,

Bring to the mercy seat, leave them there.

Never a burden He cannot bear,

Never a Friend like Jesus.’

PRAYER: Lord, may your church rise to the challenge of this hour. Help us to see the privilege and opportunity to come into your presence and intercede.

When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly. ² But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. ³ In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.NIV

The Jews were facing a desperate situation, and it called for an urgent and serious response. The response it received from them was equal to the magnitude of the problem. There was a spiritual battle to be fought and the people faced it with spiritual weapons, including fasting. Mention fasting to some Christians and they respond like you’re some sort of weird extremist. ‘You can push things a bit too far you know!’ There are no doubt churches where it’s a bit like the king’s court. There’s no room for the expression of grief, sadness lament. It has to be all joy (or at least, you have to feign it). You could draw a crowd for a band and a knees up, but not nearly so many would turn up for a knees down. Prayer is hard work and prayer meetings are not widely popular. The devil has a vested interest in ensuring this is so.

During the last year (2020) the world has faced a serious problem. Hundreds of thousands of people have died. That’s hundreds of thousands of souls swept into eternity. I can’t help but ask the question whether many of us in the church have been playing instead of praying? There are answers to be found on our knees and nowhere else. There are ‘kinds’ which do not come out except by prayer and fasting. Yet we devote hours to trivia. May God have mercy on His own people, the church, as well as on our land and world.

On new year’s day 2021 we thank God for the science, and the scientists who have made a vaccine possible. We are right to be grateful for this dawning of hope. But in the short term a desperate crisis rages. Thankfully, it’s not too late for there to be an urgent and serious response from the people of God.

Who will rise (or rather, bend) to the challenge?