"Holy War" Esther 9-10 (Larry Malament)

Sermon Quotes:

Bryan Gregory: “Our hearts can be filled with the spirit of Purim only as we live in the reality and conviction that one day Jesus will return and bring us into the realm of his perfect peace and joy and rest, and on that day we will sit down at a celebratory feast like we have never seen before. It is what John describes as the marriage supper of the Lamb, with glory and beauty that surpass that of the great Persian marriage banquet at the beginning of Esther and that of the merry Purim festival at the end of Esther. And we will celebrate. We will celebrate because we will be able to look back over the history of our world and the journey of our lives, and we will see before our eyes, for the first time, the full beauty of God’s providential work….Together we will look deeply into its shapes and contours, and we will see the subtlety of its artistic style and the character of its brushstrokes. We will even find them in some of the most unexpected places – in our moral failures and our compromises, in our sufferings and our victimizations, in our moments of crisis and our defining moments, and in every twist and every turn of every seemingly insignificant and mundane detail. On that day, after having taken it all in, we will be able to rejoice with joy indescribable. We will celebrate with heart overflowing. On that glorious day, we will see the artwork for what it really is: the masterpiece of the artist himself.  And we will see that in all the details of our lives, in all the events and in all the circumstances, he was providentially there. He was always there.”

David Strain: “In many ways the application, the big idea, the answer to the question: ‘what is the book of Esther for? ‘lies right here. According to Esther 9:20-28 this whole story is told to explain the festival of Purim. Esther is about remembering the saving rest of God’s grace and rejoicing in it. That is what they were to do at Purim. And it is what Christians do every Lord’s day. On the first day of the week, when death was undone, and the stone rolled away, and life and immortality were brought to light in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we gather to remember the Sabbath rest of God and to rejoice. Sunday is our festival day. The Christian Sabbath is our day of feasting and gladness, for giving and celebration. And a part of our task, as we seek to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, is to rehearse again the victory of Jesus Christ, to tell and be told the 'old, old story of Jesus and his love'. It is to remember the redemptive rest of God won at Calvary, so that, whatever the dark clouds of Monday to Saturday are, on this day, the day when light was spoken into darkness, and the light of the world rose in triumph, on this day, the light of the gospel might shine afresh into our darkness and the darkness never overcome it, that on this day our sorrow might be turned to gladness and our mourning into a holiday. If you think the Sabbath observance is a killjoy, you’ve never understood nor kept the Sabbath rightly. It is a ‘day of rest and gladness, a day of joy and light’ on which to remember the redemptive rest won by Christ and rejoice.”