This past Lord’s Day I finished preaching through the book of Esther. The theme of this sermon series was “The Hidden Hand of God.” Esther reveals the God who works behind scenes to save his people and bring his purposes to pass. God’s name appears nowhere in Esther, but his fingerprints are everywhere. Behind every human action and situation, God is at work for the good of his people.
A few weeks after I started preaching through Esther, my father began teaching through this book for the adult Sunday School class at his church. Recently he sent me a poetic overview of Esther, which I read to our congregation this past Lord’s Day. They were richly blessed by this poem, and I trust you will be enriched also.
Though I’ve read Esther through and through,
Much more than just a time or two,
I must confess I thought it odd —
I could not find the name of God.
“It must be there,” I told myself,
And took my Bible from the shelf
To read the sacred text again,
Each verse by verse, all chapters ten.
Results, however, stayed the same —
I found no mention of His name.
It mattered not how hard I’d try,
No Yahweh, God, or Adonai.
I paused a bit to rest a spell,
Then searched for Elohim as well.
But that was absent like the rest,
Thus ended, then, my fruitless quest.
But, lo, a still small voice within:
”Look not for names — just look for Him;
For eyes of faith will always see
His presence real, as clear can be.”
So, I betook myself anew,
And re-read Esther through and through;
Then found, with diff’rent set of mind,
The God whose name I could not find.
I saw how Vashti’s costly stand
Against the king’s obscene command
Was used of God and directly led
To Esther’s being queen instead.
How being in the perfect spot
To overhear a wicked plot,
Was Mordecai who told the queen
Of plans to kill the Persian king.
How sleep departed from that king
One fateful night, who had them bring
The chronicles so he could read
Of Mordecai’s heroic deed.
How Haman’s pride and bitter hate
Had sealed his doom and awful fate —
To hang on gallows built up high
That he’d prepared for Mordecai.
How Esther went before the throne
To make her deep petitions known.
Not being summoned, still she deared;
Who, if she perished, did not care.
Then how the Persian king arranged
To null a law he could not change —
By letting Jews attack at will
The ones who sought them out to kill.
Nigh eighty thousand Gentiles died,
Who purposed Jewish genocide.
For it was God upon the throne,
Still keeping watch above His own.
And through the ages ever since,
We see His royal fingerprints
Upon the scroll of history,
Upon the lives of you and me.