A Whole Lot More
We’ve made it to the final post of the Right Place, Right Time series and we end with this idea that there is still a whole lot more for us to find. To uncover. To walk into. To experience.
So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them. For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur (that is, the lot) for their ruin and destruction.
Esther 9:23-24 NIV
It looked like their whole lot would be ruin and destruction. It looked like this would be it. That there would be nothing beyond the thirteenth of Adar.
Sometimes it feels like there’s quite a lot trying to take us out. It seems like there’s a lot conspiring against us. That our lot in life is always to suffer. To always struggle. That this is just how it is and how it’ll always be.
But…
There’s a but in this story and there’ll be a but in what you’re experiencing now.
But when the plot came to the king’s attention, he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head, and that he and his sons should be impaled on poles.
Esther 9:25 NIV
Maybe there’s a lot against you right now and the answer is hidden, flying well under the radar. But. It will appear. At just the right time.
You’ve probably had moments like that already? Where the right thing came at just the right time. A whole lot of them, I’m sure. They are just hard to recall when you’re waiting, hoping and walking through a difficult time again.
(Therefore these days were called Purim, from the word pur.)
Esther 9:26 NIV
Purim is the plural of the word pur. Effectively meaning lots. The days, which became known as Purim, remembered all the events that had happened. The whole story.
Lots of twists. Lots of turns. Lots of emotions. Lots of comings and goings.
Lots and lots of happenings.
Continuing to remember it all, was to continually remind themselves that God was walking with them, through everything. That God continues to work in spite of everything.
The world continues to turn. Our lives continue to move forward. We continue to move into new times and new places, with all that is behind us.
Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them, the Jews took it on themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed.
Esther 9:26-27 NIV
The Jews embraced it all.
And we need to as well.
The whole lot.
There is always a right time and a right place for everything. An appointed time. Everything you’ve ever seen and everything you’ve ever experienced is never wasted. You’ve always been where you’ve needed to be.
And you’ll continue to be. You can look back and look forward in equal measure. And with equal certainty.
These days should be remembered and observed in every generation by every family, and in every province and in every city. And these days of Purim should never fail to be celebrated by the Jews—nor should the memory of these days die out among their descendants.
Esther 9:28 NIV
As I write, I’ve not long finished my 280 mile walk, to mark my 40th Birthday, and I’ve just finished designing a book to record that journey. One of my reflections in it, is that I should look back on it often and remember how thankful I am for the whole experience.
Maybe, it’s a good time to reflect on all that’s happened in your life too? Maybe you’ll start to realize that there’s been a whole lot to experience. A lot to be thankful for.
For every person and every place.
And there will continue to be people for us to share the journey with. New faces and familiar ones.
I found a beautiful short film recently called, ‘To Be Frank’ by Anna Wilder Burns. The film documents the life of Frank Paine, a 73-year-old surfer from South Bay. At one point in the film, as he’s talking about the surf familia, Frank says,
‘When we start to behave like there’s something important about what we do, we create our own traditions.’
It’s about so much more than Purim. And, Purim itself, is about so much more as well. A whole lot more. Sadly, when we lose our own connection with the journey made by those who came before us, tradition becomes staid and dull. Lifeless. Lacking that cutting edge authenticity.
In ‘Words by a Rustic Gate,’ the 17th Century Japanese poet, Matsuo Bashō, says,
Seek not the paths of the ancients;
Seek that which the ancients sought.
Purim, or indeed any similar tradition, is never meant to tether you to some time or place in the past but is a springboard into the future. A companion along the way.
So Queen Esther, daughter of Abihail, along with Mordecai the Jew, wrote with full authority to confirm this second letter concerning Purim. And Mordecai sent letters to all the Jews in the 127 provinces of Xerxes’ kingdom—words of goodwill and assurance—to establish these days of Purim at their designated times, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had decreed for them, and as they had established for themselves and their descendants in regard to their times of fasting and lamentation. Esther’s decree confirmed these regulations about Purim, and it was written down in the records.
Esther 9:29-32 NIV
One of the main characteristics of the book of Esther is its chiastic structure. Throughout the story we find many connected pairs. Pairs of banquets and such like.
Here, we find another pair— a pair of letters. This, the second of the two.
In this particular letter, written about the establishment of Purim, we now find fasting and lamentation added to joy and celebration.
The letter, written with words of goodwill and assurance, seems to recognize the development of Purim itself. As a living, breathing, fluid festival. Establishing for themselves this feasting and fasting hybrid model.
This practice of Purim came into the Jewish religious calendar in the most unexpected of places, at the most unexpected of times. Through unlikely people. It now appears alongside Passover and the like.
It emerged in and through obscurity.
But it has shaped a nation’s consciousness. It’s become part of the culture.
It stands for a whole lot more and it invites us to a whole lot more too.
And if you feel like you’re in an obscure place, at an obscure time and you can’t see a whole lot more besides. Even better. Because that’s definitely the right place and the right time for God’s work to be seen. And God does this through ordinary people like Esther and Mordecai. And you and I.
King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire, to its distant shores. And all his acts of power and might, together with a full account of the greatness of Mordecai, whom the king had promoted, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Media and Persia? Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews, and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews, because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews.
Esther 10:1-3 NIV
One of my favourite authors, CJ Casciotta, has just written a new newsletter called, ‘Why We’re Still Waiting for the Next Mr. Rogers’. In it, he reflects on being asked by a podcast host why there isn’t the next Mr Rogers somewhere.
CJ responds,
“Fred Rogers didn’t become a Presbyterian-minster-turned-unlikely-television-superstar to create similar on-camera kindness machines. His mission was to make kindness normal, ordinary, something we all just do.
The reason there’s no next Mr. Rogers is because we’re all waiting around for the next Mr. Rogers.
We can get so busy “looking for the helpers,” we forget we are the helpers.”
You can access and subscribe to his writing here,
There’s a whole lot more I could say and could have said. But here’s my final thought. I hope I say it with good will and assurance.
There’s a whole lot more good we can be doing in the very places and at the very times we find ourselves in. Right here. Right now.
“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?”
Esther 4:14 NIV
