Powerfully Present. Conspicuously Absent.
. . . and who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this? (
Esther 4:12-14
).
There are times and places where we do not expect to hear the name of God.
There are circumstances and settings where the name of God is never mentioned, and we are not surprised. In fact, to hear the name of God in such moments . . . well, that would strike us as truly surprising. In so many spheres of life God remains unnamed, and we hardly notice.
Last week Marnie and I watched hours of US Open coverage on ESPN. John and Patrick McEnroe did much of the commentating, and as best I can recall they said nothing about God.
About a year ago we attended the Elton John concert at PP&L Center. It was an amazing show – but again, Elton said nothing about God.
On a Thursday night in August my family spent the evening strolling through various venues at Musikfest, sampling music and food. We had a great time. But aside from the worship service we do every year in the Festplatz tent, I don’t think much was said about God at Musikfest, at least not on that Thursday night.
None of that offends me. Such is the culture we inhabit. There are, however, some places where we expect God to be named boldly and often. Not to hear the name of God in such settings is odd, even disturbing. If there’s a place where we expect to see or hear the name of God, it would surely be in the sixty-six books that make up the Bible. And usually we are not disappointed.
But the book of Esther is an exception. God is never named in Esther. Not once.
Taught by Veggie Tales
I have a deep fondness for the biblical story of Esther. I’ll confess that my affection can largely be credited to
Veggie Tales
. If you raised children during the late 90s and the first decade of the 2000s you know what I’m talking about. The creators of
Veggie Tales
had the most innovative and entertaining way of taking Bible stories and making them accessible.
I was a working pastor – seminary educated, ordained, the whole deal – and I became deeply familiar with the story of Esther (‘Essie’) by playing the
Veggie Tales
video for my kids over and over and over again. To this very day we can recite lines from the video. We loved it.
In the history of the Christian church, however, the actual book of Esther has not always enjoyed the same kind of popularity.
New Testament scholar Karen H. Jobes notes that for the first seven centuries of the Christian church no commentary was written on Esther. As best we know, John Calvin never preached a single sermon from Esther and his voluminous commentaries on scripture omit the book. The great reformer Martin Luther expressed his dislike of the book because of what he called “heathen unnaturalities.”
If we read the book carefully, we’ll see what Jobes calls a “disquieting moral ambiguity.” Sensuality and brutality figure large in the tale, but religious themes and values are hard to detect. God is not named. This is very odd for a document included in the canon of holy scripture. For sure, there was much that the cute thirty-minute
Veggie Tales
video failed to tell us.
So what’s going on here?
Pondering God’s Providence
Jobes goes on to explain that the book of Esther is important for Christians and for Christian theology because of what it teaches us about the providence of God, a phrase that we Presbyterians cherish even if we don’t talk about it very often. God’s providence means that God “in some invisible and inscrutable way, governs all creatures, actions and circumstances through the normal and the ordinary course of human life” (Jobes).
This means that even in a story where God is not named and there’s not much happening that seems spiritual or religious, God is actively at work to bring about his purposes. God isn’t a character on the stage – but his fingerprints are all over the drama.
God is powerfully present, even when he seems to be conspicuously absent.
Said another way, in moments of your life when you cannot see the slightest evidence of God’s work in your life, or when you cannot sense even a hint of God’s presence with you in your circumstances, God is indeed there. God is actively at work in such moments to accomplish his purposes. God is in our most ordinary moments “ruling all things to the benefit of his people and the glory of his name.”
Looking Back
The best way to keep the providence of God from being a philosophical or theological abstraction is to look at your own life story. By God’s design, his providential care and guidance is usually seen in hindsight. In the present, the moment you’re living right now, you may have no awareness of God’s active presence in your life. But look back. Maybe you’ll see that your life has had many defining moments.
This led to that which made something possible and led you to that person who impacted you in a certain way that . . . well, you get the idea. You could have never guessed at that time how God was working – and that just might include the painful moments when you were sure God had abandoned you completely.
So how does this look for you? Where have you experienced God’s powerful presence, even when he seemed conspicuously absent?
Prayer:
Ever faithful God, we’re so fast to jump to conclusions about the moments we live. We have a hard time seeing you at work in our ordinary, boring, and especially painful moments. And yet you are there, shaping a story that may someday amaze us. Do your work in us today as you see fit, and teach us to rest in your providential care, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Mark H. Crumpler
Teaching Pastor
