Encountering Esther

We began a series at Bridge today on the book of Esther. It's an interesting book for all sorts of reason. For one thing, God isn't mentioned once. But that doesn't mean that He is not active in Esther's story - far from it. In a funny way it makes it a very appropriate book to study in Europe in the 21st century. From the highest to the lowest levels in most of Europe, polite society expects no mention to be made of God except perhaps in the most abstract of terms. You know the sort of thing - at the best dinner parties only two topics must not be raised, God and politics. It seems to me these are the only two topics worth having a conversation about - with the possible exception of Scotland's brilliant victory over France at Murrayfield today! But we can talk at great length about the weather (an English specialty), about football (a Liverpool specialty) about schools ( a parent specialty).

Yet underlying the decisions of governments, the lives of individuals, the sweep of history, is the activity of the Living God. But it is largely unseen, and never commented on. The big events in society are given naturalistic explanations, usually plausible ones. But I've always felt that if an Amos or an Ezekiel had been around when the Dublane shootings occurred, or those planes crashed into the twin towers, they might well have put a different complexion on things. In their day, there were undoubtedly those who provided only naturalistic explanations for the big events. Invasions, defeats, victories, famines etc. and yet they were able to point out spiritual significance in the same events.

And so we come back to Esther. No explicit mention of God, yet here is His providence in action. Here He is weaving an intricate tapestry, placing individuals here, removing others there and so on. It's providence that is really impressive, not so much the big one-off supernatural interventions (although they can be impressive too!). And of course it is still all around us. Witness the events in Parliament last week. Does politics explain it all? No, not really.