Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“When Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him, his advisers and his wife Zeresh said to him, ‘If Mordecai, before whom your downfall has begun, is of the Jewish people, you will not prevail against him, but will surely fall before him.’”
NL Daily Devotion for Friday, December 9, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
It’s a curious things for Zeresh to say. As a theatrical device, she’s just foreshadowing the ultimate demise of her villainous husband along with all his plans and designs. But she also makes a profound statement about God without mentioning God. In fact, God isn’t mentioned directly at all in the book of Esther. But indirectly? It’s a melodrama about the Jewish people, who become near victims of genocide simply because of their cultural identity. And what is their cultural identity based on? The worship of God. The following of God’s commandments, which include not having any other gods, thus preventing Mordecai from bowing down before Haman, which sets the whole plot into motion.
Zeresh, to the thrill of this play’s original audiences (and us, if we know how to read it) proclaims that God is more powerful than anything Haman or even the King can through at God’s people. Haman conspires to have Mordecai killed and winds up being tricked into throwing Mordecai a parade and giving him the highest honors. Why? Mordecai has God on his side and Haman, as hard as he tries, will not prevail over the will of God.
It's a powerful message to us today in the midst of a world filled with tragedy, sorrow, oppression, injustice, hatred, and greed. We can proclaim with Zeresh that these powers will not prevail over us, because we are God’s beloved children and that God’s promise of justice is sure—even if we don’t see it right now. Zeresh is foreshadowing the future, and we can look with hope to that future when God’s reign is fully realized in our midst.
What signs do I see in my life that God keeps God’s promises?