A sermon on Esther 4-5 by Rev Richard Keith on Sunday 29 March 2026
A friend of mine once shared a story about a man he knew who was dying. His friend was not a Christian, and my friend felt a burden on his heart to go and tell him about Jesus. Time was running out, but he never went.
At his friend’s funeral, he discovered that a mutual friend had shared the gospel with the dying man, and on his deathbed he had made a commitment to Christ. My friend shared both joy at his friend’s conversion and grief that, through his own disobedience, he had missed the moment. God’s purposes were not frustrated. The man came to faith. But my friend missed the moment that had been prepared for him.
This was the faith that Mordecai confessed to Esther: “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” This is a message about that question, and about the woman who answered it.
We have been looking at the book of Esther over the last couple of weeks. Our passage begins with Mordecai learning dreadful news. The king had ordered that every Jew throughout the Persian Empire was to be destroyed on a single day, eleven months away. Mordecai tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city with a loud and bitter cry.
Word reached Esther that Mordecai was in mourning, so she sent a trusted servant to find out what was wrong. Mordecai told her about the king’s edict and sent a message: go to the king and beg for mercy for your people. Esther sent back the only honest reply she could give. Anyone who approached the king without being summoned would be put to death, unless the king extended the gold sceptre. And she had not been called to the king for thirty days.
She was not making excuses. She was describing reality. The man she was being asked to confront was the same man who had discarded Vashti without a second thought, the same man whose carelessness had signed a death warrant for millions. Xerxes may not be the villain of the story, but he was not safe. He had never been safe. He held unlimited power and had a habit of acting on whatever suggestion came last.
Esther also carried a secret she had never disclosed. She was a Jew, one of the people now marked for destruction. For weeks she had not been summoned, which could only mean she was not wanted. To go to the king uninvited was to walk toward possible death.
Mordecai’s reply is the heart of the book. He told her not to think she would escape simply because she was in the king’s house. If she remained silent, relief and deliverance for the Jews would arise from another place, but she and her family would perish. And then he asked the question: who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?
He did not say that God had placed her there. He said, “who knows?” It is a question, not a declaration. In Esther, God’s will is not revealed with the clarity of a burning bush or fire from heaven. There is only the question. Perhaps the injustice that took Esther from her home and placed her in the royal court was not random chance, but part of a larger purpose.
Mordecai was also honest about something else. He did not say she must act. He said that if she did not, deliverance would come from another place. God’s purposes do not depend on Esther. His promise to his people will not fail. But Esther had been given a moment, and moments, once passed, do not return. My friend learned that at a funeral.
Esther’s reply is the moment her hidden faith becomes visible. She told Mordecai to gather the Jews in Susa and fast for her for three days. She and her attendants would do the same. Then she would go to the king, even though it was against the law. “And if I perish, I perish.”
The book of Esther never mentions God or prayer, but when Esther called for fasting, she was calling for prayer. This is the language of the persecuted, words that carry meaning for those who understand. Esther was acting in faith long before such language became familiar elsewhere.
Her words mark a turning point. Not because she stopped being afraid, but because she decided that the cost of staying hidden was now greater than the cost of being known. She would no longer conceal her identity while her people faced destruction.
Three days later, Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court. The king saw her, and the whole empire seemed to hold its breath. Then he extended the golden sceptre. He asked what she wanted, and she invited him and Haman to a banquet she had prepared.
Not an accusation. Not a plea for her people. A banquet. She had just risked her life by entering uninvited. Now she needed to understand the situation more clearly. How much did the king trust Haman? What did she need to know before she spoke?
At the first banquet, the king again asked her request, and she invited him and Haman to a second banquet the next day. She was not stalling. She was building trust and creating the right moment.
Meanwhile, Haman left the first banquet elated, but his joy turned to rage when he saw Mordecai, who still refused to bow. At home, he boasted about his status, yet confessed that none of it satisfied him while Mordecai remained. His family suggested building a gallows and asking the king to have Mordecai executed. Haman agreed and set the work in motion that very night.
That same night, the king could not sleep. He ordered the court records to be read and heard again of Mordecai’s unrewarded act of loyalty. When Haman arrived in the morning, intending to request Mordecai’s execution, the king asked him what should be done for the man the king delights to honour. Assuming the honour was for himself, Haman described an extravagant display. The king then instructed him to carry it out for Mordecai.
Haman’s pride had built the gallows, disturbed the king’s sleep, and placed the honour of Mordecai on his own lips. He led Mordecai through the city in humiliation, then was summoned to Esther’s second banquet.
There, the king again asked Esther her request, and this time she spoke. She asked for her life and the lives of her people, revealing that they had been sold for destruction. After all her concealment, she now identified fully with her people. “I and my people.” Their fate was her fate.
The king demanded to know who had done this, and Esther pointed to Haman. The king left in anger, and in his absence Haman pleaded with Esther for his life. When the king returned and saw him, he interpreted the scene as an assault. A servant mentioned the gallows Haman had prepared for Mordecai, and the king ordered that Haman be hanged on it.
The trap Haman had set caught him instead. His own pride became the instrument of his downfall.
Though the book never names God, his presence is unmistakable. He is at work in every detail: in Esther’s rise, in Mordecai’s unrewarded act, in the king’s sleepless night, in Haman’s pride. None of it appears miraculous, yet all of it is providence.
This answers the question that runs through the book: where is God? He is here. He is with his people, working through chaos, not apart from it. Through injustice, through flawed rulers, through human courage, he accomplishes his purposes.
Esther’s courage points beyond itself. She stepped out of hiding and identified with her people at great personal cost. “I am one of them. What happens to them happens to me.”
Centuries later, that pattern is fulfilled more fully. God is present not in a palace but in Jesus. Not hidden in privilege, but revealed in humility. When the moment came, he did not approach a throne hoping for mercy. He went to the cross and became mercy. He identified completely with his people, taking their fate upon himself.
Esther risked her life and lived. Jesus gave his life and, in doing so, defeated sin and death. In him, God turned the tables: the proud brought low, the humble raised, evil undone by its own designs.
That is the shape of the gospel, and it calls for a response. The same question remains: who knows but that you have come for such a time as this?
Not always in dramatic circumstances. Often in ordinary moments. When someone needs to hear the gospel and you are there. When truth needs to be spoken and silence is easier. When a fellow believer needs support. When a small compromise presents itself.
My friend learned the cost of missing such a moment. God’s purposes continued, but the opportunity passed to another.
Esther took her moment, at great cost. And the God who placed her there is the God who places us here. In this place, in this time, among these people. Who knows? Perhaps the same God who worked through Esther’s exile is working through yours.
The God who weaves ordinary events into his saving purposes may be doing the same with your life, even now. So take the moment. Pray first. Ask God to go before you. And then go, for such a time as this.