For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place. (Est. 4:14 ESV)
Mordecai wants Esther to realize that as God seeks a way to confront Haman’s racism and intolerance, Esther is a desired instrument, but she isn’t decisive. Esther is God’s preference. She is not, however, God’s prerequisite. God has the capacity and audacity to choose anyone else to rescue the Jews from the grip of Haman.
Mordecai understands that when it comes to any particular mission, we are valuable to God, but we are not vital. God wants to employ us. God labors diligently in history to arrange things so that he can use us in a chosen moment in time. But God is so supreme he could just as easily utilize another in our place, in spite of our suitability for the task.
This sharp statement is intended to cultivate within Esther and us the one quality so absent in Esther’s world and ours: humility. Mordecai has seen that what happens when one human puts himself on the top rung of the ladder. He’s witnessed the results of a nation embracing the ultimate “us first” policy. When the world is full of me, whoever “me” happens to be, the result is a nightmare. Mordecai seeks to end the bad dream by cultivating within just one person the antidote: humility. If even one person like Esther can be gripped by the force of lowliness, there just might be hope.
Thankfully, Mordecai’s message finds an open heart. Esther spends the next three days in prayer and fasting. This is not the posture of one who believes the world revolves around her. It is not the stance of one who sees herself higher than all the rest. This is the posture of humility. Esther’s desperation to be “free of me” is what God uses to save the world from those who are “full of me.” Haman’s pride and ego rip the world apart. Esther’s humility stitches it back together again.
