In part 1 and part 2, we looked at biblical patterns of deliverance in Esther. We also looked at the roots of anti-Semitism and the distortion of God’s word. Finally, we are going to look at the lessons of Purim and the book of Esther for today.
Repeating pattern – Purim through history
The events of the book of Esther are emblematic of the experience of the Jewish people throughout history: repeated threats to their existence met by the Lord’s deliverance.
There have been various deliverances for the Jewish people coinciding with Purim through history. It has become a tradition for Jewish communities around the world to celebrate special Purims to remember particular times of deliverance in their own community’s history and there are over 100 instances listed in the Encyclopaedia Judaica.
Two striking examples of God’s intervention and justice stand out.
Stalin and Purim
After the War, Stalin targeted thousands of Jewish scientists, politicians, and intellectuals who were dismissed from their positions, humiliated, arrested, and tortured. Stalin-controlled media spread rumours that Jewish doctors were poisoning Russian children by injecting them with diphtheria and killing infants in hospital wards. Six Jewish doctors were arrested and tortured into making a confession to that effect in 1950.
This prepared the ground for Stalin’s plan to eliminate Russia's 2-3 million Jews, by deporting them to the freezing, uninhabitable regions of Russia and leaving them to die of starvation, hypothermia, and disease.
The expulsion was set to begin on 6 March 1953 just a few days after Purim, but on the festival of Purim itself, 1 March, 1953, Stalin suffered a stroke. He died on 5 March, the day before the expulsion was due to be carried out, and the plan was dropped.1
Execution of 10 Nazi war criminals
Interestingly, in the 11th century, a great rabbi said Esther’s request for the sons of Haman to be hanged “tomorrow” (Es 9:13) referred to a time in the future when 10 enemies of the Jewish people would be hanged.
Julius Streicher was the editor of the notoriously anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer, which whipped up popular sentiment against the Jewish people. He used Purim as propaganda against the Jewish people, saying in 1938 that the Jews wanted a Purim-style war against the German people.
Streicher realised that he was involved in a repeat of the plot of the book of Esther – that the Nuremberg hangings could be seen as revenge on Haman’s 10 sons.
After the War, Streicher was one of 11 Nazi War criminals sentenced, unusually, to be hanged. Two hours before the sentence was due to be carried out, Göring committed suicide, leaving 10 on death row. The significance of this number was not lost on Julius Streicher2. To the assembled witnesses, as he reached the gallows, he cried out: “Purim Fest 1946!”
Streicher realised that he was involved in a repeat of the plot of the book of Esther – that the Nuremberg hangings could be seen as revenge on Haman’s 10 sons.
Boiling frog principle3
From Germany’s history, we can see how the darkness grows gradually. The first anti-Jewish laws were passed in 1933 and began with the burning of books and the first concentration camps being established.4-5 But the phenomenon of racial anti-Semitism had grown up in the 1870s. However, it was not until 1939 that the first Jewish ghetto was formed and mass deportations only began in 1942.6
Today, anti-Semitism has morphed again. It is now prevalent in expressions of anti-Zionism in response to the birth of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Jewish loyalty to host states has always been questioned – ‘are they one with us or loyal to Israel?’ Haman tried to persuade the king that they were a threat. However, Jeremiah had instructed the Jews in exile to seek the prosperity of their host nation (Jer 29:7). Jews throughout the diaspora have consistently fought for their host nations and blessed them through cultural, scientific and intellectual advances.
Anti-Semitism is on the rise today. Jews are being blamed in internet forums for Covid 19. Some say the pandemic is faked or overblown: a Jewish conspiracy to benefit Jewish bankers and internationalists. Other anti-Semites believe the virus exists and are calling it the “Holocough” because, despicably, they hope the virus will finish the work of the Holocaust.7
Jews throughout the diaspora have consistently fought for their host nations and blessed them through cultural, scientific and intellectual advances.
Those who are concerned about what the pandemic is ushering in can easily be caught up on the fringes of this material. For Christians, alarm bells should ring when pandemic scepticism shades into anti-Semitic conspiracy theory territory.
Persecution watch
For Bible-believing Christians, the darkness is increasing. Open Doors estimates over 300 million Christians around the world face persecution for their faith with most facing high or extreme pressure. Attacks against churches increased by 500% in 2020.8
In the West, we do not risk our lives as believers, but pressures are growing. In the media, our biblical moral views are denigrated. Our exclusive claims about Jesus are not tolerated. Along with the Jewish people, our particularity sets us apart and troubles authorities. French Government Minister, Gérald Darmanin, said recently, “Evangelicals are a very important problem”, adding, “We cannot discuss with people who refuse to write on paper that the law of the Republic is superior to the law of God.”9
For Bible-believing Christians, the darkness is increasing.
A future one world government and religion, despite fine words about unity and diversity, will not tolerate the particularity of those who belong to the God of Israel.
A false gospel is already in the air in today’s prevailing humanist, pluralist and relativist philosophies – it is a bloodless gospel, having a form of godliness in its assertions of love and brotherhood of man, but denying God’s power, and denying the incarnation.
Esther’s self-sacrifice
If we want to be an Esther church, we need to learn from Esther’s example of obedience and sacrifice: standing up for God’s people – Jews and Christians – when it counts and costs. Esther could not quietly slip away after her big moment. She had to remain by the king’s side and sacrifice her personal happiness. Perhaps that was for a good reason. It appears that she is the queen by the Persian king’s side in Nehemiah 2:6, possibly influencing his decision to approve Nehemiah’s request to rebuild Jerusalem.10
Believers who have been trained in self-denial, in taking up their cross and following the Lord daily, know that the goal of a fruitful Christian life is not health and wealth but obedience to the Great Commission, the key command to all believers. In these end times, the pattern of believers’ lives will increasingly be Endure, Pray, Overcome. And Trust! The God who brought a whole nation out of slavery into the desert and fed and watered them miraculously can do abundantly more than we can ask or imagine.
Civil disobedience and the remnant church
Both Esther and Mordechai risked their lives repeatedly in order to save others by disobeying state laws on pain of death. Mordechai declined repeatedly to bow down to the King’s second in command, Haman, which nearly gets him killed. Esther risks her life twice by approaching a mercurial, despotic king without permission.
What will we do when faced with the hard choices that lie ahead for the remnant church?
Mordechai is a model for us here. He seeks the good of those in authority – he saves the king’s life by exposing an assassination plot – and yet he refuses to bow to evil. So, he does not automatically set himself against those in authority just because they do not follow the God of Israel and his laws, but when he is required to go against God’s Word he refuses. (In Jewish tradition, Mordechai will not bow to Haman because he wears an idolatrous image on his clothing. An alternate view is that he does not bow due to Haman’s Amalekite heritage.)
Unless we have biblically-derived reasons for doing something contrary to what the government has ordered, we should seek faithfully to obey the authorities that God has put in place.
After the first lockdown directive was issued, Christians had to weigh the imperative to meet together for worship (Hebrews 10:24-25) against the Bible’s strong theme of preservation of life. Most Christians saw some wisdom in forgoing physical corporate worship (temporarily) for the sake of preserving as many lives as possible, especially as meeting online is possible. However, by the second lockdown, about 120 UK church leaders mounted a challenge to be able to open their churches for worship again, albeit socially-distanced.11-12
If the government had not listened, would they have the right to disobey? The Church of Scotland is facing that very issue.13 Unless we have biblically-derived reasons for doing something contrary to what the government has ordered, we should seek faithfully to obey the authorities that God has put in place, as Romans 13 says.
Professor Kenneth Berding identifies these scripturally mandated areas for civil disobedience:
- If your government instructs you to murder someone (Exodus 1:15-21).
- If your government instructs you to engage in false worship (Daniel 3).
- If your government instructs you not to pray (Daniel 6).
- If your government instructs you to stop sharing the gospel (Acts 4:17-20; 5:27-29; 5:40-42).14
In other words, if a governmental leader instructs you to do something contrary to what God has already instructed in his Word, you not only have permission, but you have an obligation to disobey.
However, if you are instructed to do something that does not contradict the Word of God, the Bible requires obedience to those in authority.
The Mark of the Beast
When it comes to the question of accepting the Mark of the Beast (Rev 13:16-17), the choice will be clear: it will be obviously idolatrous to do so. However, the writing will be on the wall beforehand.
Some think we are already experiencing repression and restriction of a type that will rapidly prepare the way for the Anti-Christ. Holocaust survivors in Israel are saying that what they are witnessing in the Covid response there regarding the vaccine, censorship, lockdowns and detention centres reminds them of what happened pre-Holocaust. Those who have lived in Communist regimes are similarly struck by the growing loss of freedom in recent years, currently accelerating.15
Should Christians celebrate Purim?
Christians and Jews will increasingly be united in resistance to persecution, so believers should certainly draw lessons from the book of Esther and the history of Purim, but should we celebrate the festival?
Although, the festival of Purim is not mentioned by name in the New Testament, research shows that Jesus celebrated it. In John 5:1, he went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals and, on the Sabbath, he healed a paralysed man at the pool of Bethesda. Purim was the only Jewish festival falling on a Sabbath at that time.16
Esther 9:27 says “the Jews took it on themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them (i.e., believers in Jesus: Eph 2) should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed.”
oznei HamanPurim is celebrated today by the Jewish people with a fast on the day before the festival, in memory of Esther’s fast, giving gifts to family and friends and charity to the poor and, of course, a feast. The scroll of Esther is read, and Purim plays are often put on, with fancy dress and fun. Pastries are eaten known as Hamantaschen (Yiddish), literally Haman’s pockets or oznei Haman (Hebrew), Haman’s ears.
Anti-Semitism has not disappeared and so Purim continues to resonate. Reading the book of Esther and rejoicing over the Lord’s deliverance is a great way to commemorate Purim for believers in the Jewish Messiah because all of us owe so much to God’s deliverance of his people. God promised to bless the whole world through Abraham’s descendants (Gen 12:3). Without God’s people, specially prepared and preserved over centuries, there would been no Bible, no Messiah, no hope and no knowledge of God in the world. We can at least show our thankfulness for the blessings God gave through the Jewish people by standing up for them today against anti-Semitism and praying for their salvation and deliverance.
Notes
1Purim miracle of 1953 - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)
2The New York Herald Tribune, 16 October 1946.
3Boiling frog - Wikipedia
4Anti-Jewish decrees (bl.uk)
5Concentration Camps, 1933–1939 | The Holocaust Encyclopaedia (ushmm.org)
6Deportations | The Holocaust Encyclopaedia (ushmm.org)
7Coronavirus and the plague of antisemitism.1586276450.pdf (cst.org.uk)
8Serving Persecuted Christians Worldwide - 2020 Persecution Trends - Open Doors UK & Ireland
9French Minister of Interior says “evangelicals are a very important problem”, Evangelical Focus
10The Tragic Life of Queen Esther | HuffPost
11Kenneth Berding, Civil Disobedience in an Age of Coronavirus - The Good Book Blog - Biola University, 8 May 2020.
12Church leaders launch legal challenge over lockdown closure of places of worship | The Independent – 14 November 2020.
13Religious leaders launch legal action against Scottish Government over Covid shutdown | The Scotsman
14Civil Disobedience in an Age of Coronavirus - The Good Book Blog - Biola University
15Rod Dreher, Live not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, New York City, Sentinel, 2020, xi.
16Trey Graham, Purim – A celebration for all - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com), 21 March 2019.
