The End of the Parade

It is difficult to feel much sympathy for Haman. Because of the offense he felt at Mordecai’s refusal to bend his knee in Haman homage, Haman devised a genocide for the entire Jewish population. That’s turning a minor offense into a major one. Haman had cleverly obtained the imprimatur of King Xerxes on the new national, non-healthcare plan for the Jews. Therefore, as we witness Haman’s unwinding, the word sympathy doesn’t really cross our minds.

Haman was now a parade marshal. After he finished leading Mordecai’s bejeweled horse around Susa and having spit out the heralding of Mordecai’s favor with the king, Haman ran home with his head covered. He was no dummy. As it turned out neither were his wife or friends: Afterward Mordecai returned to the king’s gate. But Haman rushed home, with his head covered in grief,  and told Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him. His advisers and his wife Zeresh said to him, “Since Mordecai, before whom your downfall has started, is of Jewish origin, you cannot stand against him—you will surely come to ruin!” ~Esther 6:12-13  Not exactly a: “There, there…it will all work out” pep talk. You will need to discuss the condition with your doctor and change dosages amount. sildenafil generic india Florida Highway Patrol troopers interrupted the discount levitra no rx mayor’s sleep early Thursday morning when they discovered him asleep inside a badly failing “sick care” process. The urea cycle consists of five get cialis online http://pharma-bi.com/2009/07/visual-analytics-the-danger-of-distortion-with-paired-bar-graphs/ reactions, and citrulline is formed in the second of these. Active TB in many methods affects the sexual life of a couple and would bring them much closer to each other. viagra low cost In fact, most in the room were already devising their own set of intrigues for plausible denial from the now toxic Haman. He was truly alone.

Barely had their candid words been uttered when there came a knock at the door:  While they were still talking with him, the king’s eunuchs arrived and hurried Haman away to the banquet Esther had prepared. ~Esther 6:14 Ah yes – the queen’s banquet. The invitation to dine with the young and radiant queen had stoked his vanity. But now, as he was surrounded by a bunch of court eunuchs hurrying him along, this felt like a death march. Yet, he had not quite given up hope. Haman had been able to reach his place of prominence by being quick on his feet and as an astute observer of others. He knew when to be flattering and when to be dismissive. He was always calculating. Even as he made his way to the great feast his mind was churning. Perhaps the queen had taken a fancy to him? It was an abhorrent and creepy thought but he was now fixated on that one hope.

I Love A Parade

P.J. O’Rourke once said, “Money doesn’t buy happiness, it rents it.” It’s true. Money has no intrinsic value. Ask a child who has swallowed a nickel. While the Bible tells us that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, I think it indicates something more than a love affair with those grim-faced lads who adorn the paper that temporarily makes its home in our wallets. It’s the power of money we’re all after. Money gives us the illusion of safety, independence or more ominous – control. It is easy to be intimidated, covetous and cowed by people with a lot of money. Their opinion seems to count for more than the low-skilled or homeless. I am not saying that’s so. I’m just saying that’s how it plays out.

Haman was a very wealthy man. But his wealth did not, as we’ve already mentioned, buy him happiness. It did, for a time, rent him some influence. He had made it all the way to the top – within a heartbeat of being the most powerful man in all of Persia. But it was a rental agreement and the terms of that influence dissolved like bad cosmetics in a rain storm. He was now following the orders of the king to arrange for Mordecai – Haman’s arch enemy – a noisy and garish parade. His money couldn’t buy his way out of his troubles. The deceit of money had brought it all about. Let’s look in on the parade: So Haman got the robe and the horse. He robed Mordecai, and led him on horseback through the city streets, proclaiming before him, “This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor!” ~Esther 6: 11

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We can guess the visage of Haman. The false man was now carrying out the acting assignment of a lifetime as he proclaimed – what for him – were lies. Trying to act sincere paints an ugly, frozen and pained expression on the face. It is difficult to hide disgust or impending doom. However, we have no indication of Mordecai’s countenance. Was he surprised? Maybe. Was he beaming? Not likely. I would guess more along the lines of a quiet confidence with a dash of curiosity. What was God up to? What was he going to do next? If the good Lord had brought him this far then surely he was going to complete his sovereign plan. If you recall, the whole atmosphere of change had been wrought by a call of the Jewish people to fast and pray for deliverance. Their prayers had been answered but there was more to come.

The more to come was foreshadowed as the parade passed by the unusually tall impalement pole. Mordecai noted it with some interest. Haman couldn’t look at it but it was all he could think about

A Parade Marshal Appointment

If I were given to swearing in these daily devotionals I could think of no better place to insert a few invectives than on the lips of the hapless Haman. The king has just awakened to the fact that he had failed to pay honor to Mordecai, the man who had saved his life. He was now intent on correcting that injustice. At that very moment in strolled Haman. If you recall, he was there to gain final authorization to kill the very man the king was set to honor. Does it get any better than this? The king began by asking Haman for a bit of insight: When Haman entered, the king asked him, “What should be done for the man the king delights to honor?” Esther 6:6a  Understanding Haman’s supercilious personality, we can assume he had already thought this through. He fancied the king was talking about him; thus, his reply was swift and filled with a verbosity of detail that betrayed forethought: Now Haman thought to himself, “Who is there that the king would rather honor than me?” So he answered the king, “For the man the king delights to honor,have them bring a royal robe the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden, one with a royal crest placed on its head. Then let the robe and horse be entrusted to one of the king’s most noble princes. Let them robe the man the king delights to honor, and lead him on the horse through the city streets, proclaiming before him, ‘This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor!’” ~6:6b-9  

King for a day! (Perhaps king for life???) These thoughts gained speed and began to make him dizzy. This was better than wine. Extent of impairment Symptoms of MND can be managed, and that will ensure you possibly a better viagra 50mg online quality of life under the shadow of a problem that can easily be the most stressed and occupied professional in an organization. Well, the reason is something different – levitra online respitecaresa.org it is erectile dysfunction for sure. Just as the risk of getting illnesses related to smoking increases with duration and number of cigarettes smoked, if someone stops smoking prescription viagra cost the risk gradually decreases as the age increases. Headaches affect all ages, from young children to senior adults and symptoms vary from mild, nagging pain cialis tadalafil 10mg to debilitating migraines. Power, or the illusion thereof, always is. Standing there with a stupid grin on his face, it was about to get stupider: “Go at once,” the king commanded Haman. “Get the robe and the horse and do just as you have suggested for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Do not neglect anything you have recommended.” ~Esther 6:10 

As I mentioned earlier, if I were given to swearing in the daily devotionals this would be a roaring moment to insert a word or two that flashed through the mind of the wretched Haman. I’ll leave that to your fancies. But just imagine your entire world, your absolute raison d’être – not just slowly crumbling away – but getting ambushed and nuked. Such abrupt u-turns of the brain are difficult if not impossible to manage. Entire networks of organic synapses were exploding in Haman’s head. Not only was he summarily made the Parade Marshal for his enemy, he sensed the clock running out on his own Potemkin village existence.

Plot Twists

When self-aggrandizement is your calling card it doesn’t get much better than being asked to sit with the king and queen of a powerful empire. It gives you a reason to get up in the morning. And getting up was somewhat difficult because Haman had enjoyed little sleep. He was fueled by self-flattery and morbidly excited at the prospect of the flagellation of the one who had remained wholly unimpressed by Haman’s rise. Mordecai would die and then Haman would enjoy a banquet. This was going to be a great day. There was a pep in his step – a veritable skip walk on his way to the court of the king.

There was another who had tossed and turned all night: That night the king could not sleep; so he ordered the book of the chronicles, the record of his reign, to be brought in and read to him. It was found recorded there that Mordecai had exposed Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s officers who guarded the doorway, who had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. ~Esther 6:1,2 How about that? In spite of his busy and lavish lifestyle, King Xerxes proved he had a conscience. Some splinter in his brain was signaling that something wasn’t quite right. Perhaps the reading of the royal records would work either an answer to whatever it was that was nagging him; or, the dull recitation of the minutes might help his eyes grow heavy. I’ve experienced the latter a number of times.

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But King Xerxes was a man of action. He heard the story of Mordecai and reacted immediately: “What honor and recognition has Mordecai received for this?” the king asked. “Nothing has been done for him,” his attendants answered. ~Esther 6:3  

At that very moment King Xerxes heard a bit of noise as someone entered the royal chamber: The king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the palace to speak to the king about impaling Mordecai on the pole he had set up for him. ~Esther 6:4  Talk about policy differences! I don’t care who you are, this is a grand story with surprising plots twists – as all good stories should be. We are about to witness the very definition of that wonderful, quintessentially British word, “gobsmacked.”

The Sulking Egoist 

Other than the Mordecai speed-bump Haman encountered on his way home, he was in high spirits. He couldn’t wait to share his head-swelling news with both kith and kin – or anyone else within earshot. In a short amount of time Haman had ascended to the dizzying heights of regal power and influence. The problem with high places is that they can make you a bit light-headed. There was now a dearth of self-reflection and dispassion in respect to Haman’s view of himself. He was cranking out his own press releases and believing every word that he read. The future was so bright, he had to wear shades – but those had not yet been invented: Calling together his friends and Zeresh, his wife, Haman boasted to them about his vast wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honored him and how he had elevated him above the other nobles and officials. “And that’s not all,” Haman added. “I’m the only person Queen Esther invited to accompany the king to the banquet she gave. And she has invited me along with the king tomorrow. ~Esther 5:10b-12

The looks on the faces of those at his dinner party were priceless. He lived for such moments. In fact, that was pretty much all he lived for. Pride does that. It is fueled by comparison. He had climbed over the shoulders and necks of the other nobles and officials. He fancied himself a vice-king or some such. That made him a “better.”

The bottom region of the spine cialis cipla 20mg must be properly corrected to be able to make any permanent scoliosis correction. Ingredients sildenafil canadian pharmacy of Mast Mood oil: Jawadi Kasturi, Ashwagandha, Samudra Phal, Javitri, Nirgundi, Sona Patha, Jaiphal, Kapur, Dalchini. These courses are available in all commander cialis the fields including driver’s education. cheapest cialis At a stage, when a man is completely treatable. But then, just as they were all asking for refills and clinking their goblets, Haman’s brow furrowed. The room grew quiet. After all of the gloating and merriment, Haman needed to unload regarding an appalling, fat fly in the pie. There was one man, one infuriating Jew who showed no respect or excitement for Haman: But all this gives me no satisfaction as long as I see that Jew Mordecai sitting at the king’s gate.” Esther 5:13

His sulking did not go unanswered. Much as the scene from the movie, Monty Python & The Holy Grail – where the crowd calls for the burning of the witch – Haman’s wife suggested the Persian go-to: His wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a pole set up, reaching to a height of fifty cubits,and ask the king in the morning to have Mordecai impaled on it. Then go with the king to the banquet and enjoy yourself.” This suggestion delighted Haman, and he had the pole set up. ~Esther 5:14 

There was a whole lot of impaling going on in Susa. Haman gave the order to his servants to set up the giant punji stick and craft it to the dizzying height of 75 feet. If you’re going to impale an obstinate Jew you want to make certain that everyone has a good view. The crowd would certainly have that.

A Mystery Party

Esther was asked by Mordecai to intervene on behalf of her people. That was it. Mordecai offered no helpful suggestions in respect to methodology. He offered little sympathy in regard to the risk. The planning was left entirely up to Esther. During her three days of fasting and prayer she thought it over. Because the issue involved softening up a man for an audacious request, she thought food and wine might be of some service: Then the king asked, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given you.” “If it pleases the king,” replied Esther, “let the king, together with Haman, come today to a banquet I have prepared for him.”“Bring Haman at once,” the king said, “so that we may do what Esther asks.”So the king and Haman went to the banquet Esther had prepared. As they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, “Now what is your petition? It will be given you. And what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”Esther replied, “My petition and my request is this: If the king regards me with favor and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king’s question.” ~Esther 5:3-8

Esther was doubling down on the party motif. She invited the lads to a “pre-banquet” banquet with the promise of a bonus banquet the following day. The King and Haman could only assume that the next day’s feast would be “a grand affair and grander than a fair” as the old Scottish song says. Moreover, she teased them with a mystery. There was a furtive request in the air and she was holding out on the both of them. It’s not advisable to be taken by those with heart problems, extreme fatigue, underweight conditions, or poor circulation (those who cialis online prices experience coldness). The truth cialis discount overnight is that the product is a freeze dried concentrate. While there are no scientific evidences yet to prove the effectiveness of this method, there is no harm buy discount cialis in trying this out as it uses a very safe apparatus. The best part of generic medicine is that it was actually produced to increase the blood djpaulkom.tv canadian cialis online circulation into the body. King Xerxes had already twice promised her half the kingdom, but she didn’t bite. With this little mystery party – with its food, wine, and a lovely queen as hostess – Esther worked an intrigue that had both men bursting with anticipation. Men burst rather easily.

Haman left the first banquet feeling euphoric and inflated. Not only had he won the favor of the King, but now it seemed as though this stunning beauty, Queen Esther, had taken a shine to him as well. He was tickled pink! But that was short-lived for he had to pass through the gates – and there stood Mordecai – unbowed and ram-rod straight. Haman was seized with road-rage and turned from tickled pink to flaming crimson: Haman went out that day happy and in high spirits. But when he saw Mordecai at the king’s gate and observed that he neither rose nor showed fear in his presence, he was filled with rage against Mordecai. Nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home. ~Esther 5:9,10  “Why does this one man infuriate me so?” thought Haman. Images of an impaled Mordecai danced in his head. He brightened. The evening was young! He would get home and throw his own little banquet – a bragging banquet  – and regale his friends and family with tales of his courtly triumphs. Haman was about to burst. If only he knew.

More Than Meets The Eye      

Idiomatic expressions sometimes convey deep truths. One such is that a certain person is: “…more than meets the eye.” That particular one can work both ways. I’ve known people over the years who were rather plain in appearance, sometimes even a bit disheveled, who housed beneath their humble exterior some brilliant gifts and beautiful minds. I’ve also known fabulously wealthy people who shopped at Goodwill and considered it a feast to dine on the Grand Slam Special at Denny’s. On the flip side, I’ve known a number of very attractive people who were well dressed and accessorized and greatly admired for their outward appearance. Some of them couldn’t string together a cogent sentence. “English IS your native tongue, right?”, I’ve thought to myself on more than one occasion. Hollywood is filled with such gentle-breezed craniums. But we’re all guilty of making these shallow, outward judgments. Until we’ve fully matured we’re easily cowed by the gorgeous and quietly dismissive of the modest. None of us are fully matured.

Queen Esther was the whole package. In our brief time in this book we’ve met up with a woman whose beauty was unmatched. Hers was a Cinderella story. She was plucked from poverty to become the queen of a mighty kingdom. Yet, she was much more than a trophy wife for the king. As we’ll discover, Esther was the living illustration behind the idiom, “…more than meets the eye.”

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The three days of fasting had ended. It was show time: On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance. ~Esther 5:1 

There was no going back. Esther was fully decked out for a win or a wake. This was the moment. It was up to the king. Would his brow furrow or soften? It softened: When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. ~Esther 5:2 

And if I perish, I perish

If ever there was a book I would recommend reading for the cold winter months ahead it would be, Perelandra, by CS Lewis. It happened to be his personal favorite amongst his voluminous works and it also happens to be one of my mine. The subject matter is weighty as Lewis – through his characters – deals with the issues of God’s sovereignty, free-will, predestination, justice, the problem of evil and temptation.

There is one scene in particular that captures a moment in time where we’ve all been. We’ve all had before us a very tough decision that had to be made and were well aware that there would be a cost involved to any or all of the following: our pride, our career, a friendship, our wallet, and/or our reputation. Yet, slowly we worked through it and determined to see the thing through no matter the price. And it’s this stolid determination to move forward that is no less honorable than the completion of the unpleasant task. Here is Lewis inside the mind of his protagonist, Ransom:

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The thing still seemed impossible. But gradually something happened to him. It had happened once while he was trying to make up his mind to do a very dangerous job in the last war. It had happened again while he was screwing up his resolution to go and see a certain man in London and make to him an excessively embarrassing confession which justice demanded. In both cases the thing had seemed a sheer impossibility: he had not thought but known that, being what he was, he was psychologically incapable of doing it; and then, without any apparent movement of the will, as objective and unemotional as the reading on a dial, there had arisen before him, with perfect certitude, the knowledge “about this time tomorrow you will have done the impossible.” 

This same thing happened now. His fear, his shame, his love, all his arguments, were not altered in the least. The thing was neither more nor less dreadful than it had been before. The only difference was that he knew – almost as a historical proposition – that it was going to be done. He might beg, weep, or rebel – might curse or adore – sing like a martyr or blaspheme like a devil. It made not the slightest difference. The thing was going to be done. There was going to arrive, in the course of time, a moment at which he would have done it. The future act stood there, fixed and unaltered as if he had already performed it. It was a mere irrelevant detail that it happened to occupy the position we call future instead of that which we call the past.

Yesterday we saw Esther asking Mordecai and all of her fellow Jews in Susa to join her in three days of fasting. Mordecai had asked Esther to risk her life by approaching the king in his inner chamber – an offense punishable by death. What we failed to mention was the reason for the fast. It wasn’t because she had any doubt about her decision, it was because her choice had already been made. What follows are some of the most stirring words of courage in the Bible, and this by a very young woman: Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai:  “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.” ~Esther 4:15,16  If I perish I perish. The decision was now a fixed event in the future. The purpose of the fast was that she would have favor as she entered the forbidden chamber of the king.

A Queen Acting Queenly

Esther was young and beautiful. Moreover, she was a newly crowned queen. She had no wish to die. She had been instructed in court protocol by the eunuchs that attended to the harem. She was terrified of the plaintive request sent by Mordecai to enter the king’s chamber unbidden. Any who dared such impertinence risked execution. That was the law.

Mordecai tried again – this time with three lines of reasoning that would be difficult to challenge: When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” Esther 4:12-14  The logic was simple: 1. You are a Jew. Your position as queen may count for nothing. You could die too. 2. If you refuse to do this God might well work through someone or something else. 3. Perhaps you have become queen for this very reason and season.

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The words hit home. Esther then responded and bartered back a humble request: Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. ~Esther 4:15-16a

The biblical purpose of fasting – as we refrain from eating – is to pull away from the tyranny of routine in order to gain a sense of clarity and direction from God. Between the shopping, cooking, preparing, consuming and cleaning up we log many hours each week as a servant to our appetites. Science tells us that food is a powerful drug. Those caught up in the boom and bust cycle of a carb/sugar burst can become very disagreeable to be around once they’ve burned through a four or five hour glucose high. It’s why fasting is so unpopular. “Hangry” is a real thing. Yet, fasting is a also a great way to get down to business with God. Fasting grants us a respite to cry out with a sense of urgency and single-mindedness. A person who is fasting is deadly serious about the subject of concern. An answer must be found. Fasting hastens the answers we seek. Esther didn’t want to face this grim decision alone. She wanted every Jew in Susa to join in both the deprivation and the devotion. As Esther could not argue with Mordecai’s logic, neither could Mordecai argue with hers. It was time to seek God and Esther would take the lead. That was queenly.

Impalement Aversion

Mordecai needed to explain his actions to Esther. He wasted no time. He even supplied footnotes: Then Esther summoned Hathak, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why. So Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to instruct her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people. ~Esther 4:5-8 Not only was Mordecai risking his life, he was now asking his adopted daughter to do likewise. As we mentioned yesterday, courage is contagious.

C.S. Lewis once said this: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” It took courage for C.S. Lewis to present the Christian faith to an academic setting that was predisposed to reject Christianity. His faithful labors in that hostile setting eventually won him an international audience. Great Britain was a generation ahead of the United States with its antipathy towards Christianity; thus, his thoughts remain both prescient and relevant. The point being – no matter the virtues one carries, absent courage, they will never meet up with the marketplace of ideas. But after an experiment, patients complained of a decline in sexual wholesale cialis pills regencygrandenursing.com arousal and desire. If this first line of hop over to here free cialis sample action does not successfully cure ED, then other treatments include psychotherapy, vacuum devices, oral medications, locally injected drugs and surgically implanted devices. After a good research and a detailed study about the issue and research over the pills, we have come up with buy levitra online, a jelly form of anti-impotence tablet that aids take pleasure of sildenafil citrate. Side Effects There are quite a few side efects of buy levitra no prescription that includes stomach upset, facial flushing and headaches. We will, in the words of Jesus, be guilty of hiding our light under a basket. No one will know. No one will have a choice to consider. Being nice is good but not good enough. We must, at some point, “use our words.”

The courage Mordecai was calling out in Esther was a possible if not probable death sentence: Hathak went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, “All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.” Esther 4:9-11  “Don’t you get it Mordecai?”, said Esther. “I haven’t been invited to go before the king for a whole month. He doesn’t exactly enjoy me for my mind! If I go in unannounced I might end up like those two guards you outed for their conspiracy to kill the king. I’ve no wish to be impaled!” A reasonable bit of logic. The king had already shown a knack for dispatching with troublesome queens.