My Eyes to Golgotha

 

We’ve been reflecting on the book of Esther in the Bible. A decree was sent to carry out a genocide on the Jews, the people of Esther, the queen, albeit the king who was a party to it was unaware of the self damage he was about to inflict on himself. Esther got to know about this sentence of death and destruction on her ethnicity only when the nephew of her father  made a one man protest in the front of the gate of the king. Esther on learning that the nephew of her late father was in sackcloth and ashes at the king’s gate sent to know the why and how.

Now, Esther couldn’t naturally carru out Mordecai’s wish to say a word in the ear of the king Ahasuerus. She explained her difficulty to Mordecai. “All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, do know that, whatsoever, whether man or woman, shall come to the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such  to whom the king shall hold the golden sceptre, that he may live: but I have not been called to come in unto  the king these thirty days” (4:12)..

The message was relayed to Mordecai who sent back a spite filled counter message, “Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at the time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance to the Jews arise from another place, but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed; and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time like this?” (4:13-14). This was a message that was futuristic as well as expressing faith. Mordecai points out to his protege that her being elevated to such lofty height as the queen is divinely potent; it’s not just a happen- chance event. This, he says, elevation, Esther is not for you but for Yahweh, the God of Israel. You need, he implies in his message, to sit yourself down and ask why you are brought here and if you should know, it’s because of God. It’s not easy to fail to know if you can only ask God. If however you fail to ask, he tried to make her see the dire consequences: destruction to her and divine rejection Who will seek a willing and obedient other. This is a most terrible thing to contemplate: rejection by God and immediate replacement of me!

Esther dares to step into the history of her fathers and garner faith peculiar to her race. She replies in another message to Mordecai: “Go, gather all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go into the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish” (4:16-17).

Esther says, If I perish, I perish! This is one instance of utter commitment to the Lord and His desire. May I come to this estate; coming into the place where I can say for the cause of the King, If I perish, then I perish. This is the faith of the Son of God – a type of faith that looks at death eyeballs to eyeballs in the cause of God and will be ready to sacrifice his life. Apostle Paul writes to the Philipians, “According to my earnest expectation that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death (1:12). The apostle was once on his way to Jerusalem, to sure shackles and the brethren who have heard the Holy Spirit speaking tried to dissuade him. He wheeled himself round, “What mean you to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13).

If I perish, I perish! The proposed fast may or may not cause a dramatic divine intervention in the predetermined cause. Pastor James, my pastor, once defined faith as confidence in God that refuses deliverance. This is deep and not for the shallow minded who pursues God for all the goodies of the world He promised in His words. Oh, no, the children faith to take from God is not to be looked down upon. But there’s another type of faith which may not provide dollars, bring elevation, financial breakthrough, deliverance from national calamities and accidents……. Paul after enumerating the many awesome achievements of a type of faith, he begins another type which is in sharp contradistinction from the first: “..…and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they may might obtain a better resurrection…..” (Hebrews 11:38-40).

When my courses of faith life defied the expectations, the preachers turned around to affix my utter failed expectations to what my ancestors did or failed to do before I was, before my father met my mother and together they brought me to the world. You know, Lord, that I don’t believe this thing they title ancestral curse for I happen to know that I am born from heaven and I’m not of this world – I’m from above and not from below. Yes, this is the unpleasant situation. I’ve fasted and prayed and rose up from my knees knowing that I have the victory in answered prayers. Nevertheless, I am an antithesis of prayers and fasting. Yet, I’m not just about to accept this lie that a one born from heaven like me can be in this bad shape because of some ancestors. Perhaps, if these men to whom the Holy Spirit has ever revealed will come with another superior argument from the New Testament economy, I may agree. But this, no!

In any case, whether there’s any succour to me or not in the now, I cannot care less. I came to embrace this Life not because of what I stood to as a man; I came to gain Him, the Lord, His own kind of LIFE. My purpose in life is to gain Him, to give Him satisfaction and delight, and to have Him in standing ovation to them who have been able to disdain and be contemptuous of all the wisdom and glorious inventions and pursuits that have riveted man to the surface of the earth; well able to look away from all the glory of the world, in Ife

Thank you Lord for your blessed countenance bestowed on Yours