Necessary for Survival - September 19

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 80; PM Psalm 77, [79]; Esther 4:4-17 or Judith 7:1-7, 19-32; Acts 18:1-11; Luke (1:1-4),3:1-14

“For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

These words are an awakening for Esther. Thrust into a position of leadership, her people face annihilation. It is one of the more challenging stories in Scripture. The Jewish people are in exile, and in this story are facing genocide due to the plot of the evil Haman. To become the queen, Esther has assimilated, undergoing the first known case of plastic surgery in the Bible (she disfigures her face to look like the people and hide her Jewish roots) and now she must claim her Jewish identity in order to save her people. The thrust of Esther is contained in this passage acknowledging that the threat of failing to acknowledge our identity is annihilation. 

A few weeks have passed since I watched my hometown engulfed in metaphorical flames. A niece of friends of mine murdered. Random shootings and murders posted on Facebook live blocks from my family moments before logging onto a Fantasy Football draft with friends in lockdown due to those same shootings. Anger boiling underneath the surface and words of fear muttered in my own home, overheard by scared children.  

A night or two passed, and I watched tens of thousands of people around the world light candles, lace up running shoes, and host prayer vigils, even here in Birmingham. A friend witnessed the same in Aspen, Colorado. There is always light and hope, even in the depths of despair. 

That is the Christian witness. We find hope in a man crucified on a cross because love has the power to overcome the cruelest and most heinous violence known in our existence. As I watched my own anger boil from the events of a few weeks past, Esther has timely wisdom. The threat of failing to acknowledge our identity is annihilation. As Christians, we cannot survive if we fail to see our capacity to love, rooted in God’s love for us, as our defining ethic for living. We must always be grounded in compassion, sacrifice, forgiveness, and love because that is what it means to follow Jesus. And if we do not reveal our identity, we cease to survive. I’d go as far as to say, we cease to be human, at least not what God intended for us. 

Our identity is not only how we want to be seen but is necessary for our survival. That identity that changes when we are Baptized is the sustaining source of our very lives. 

John+

Questions for Self-Reflection:  How does your identity as a Christian shape your life?  What practices are intentional as a result of your Christian identity?

Daily Challenge:  Esther is one of the books that is easy to read in one sitting.  If you have twenty minutes or so, read the book of Esther.