On Monday we took my father-in-law to Sight and Sound Theater to see their current stage production, Esther.  We don’t get to Sight and Sound too often, but every time we go, we are amazed by the elaborate costuming, magnificent music, and the huge technological advances that transform the sets on that immense 300-foot wrap around stage into another world.

The show was dad’s Christmas gift… last Christmas.  With the COVID shutdown, our original ticket dates were canceled and Sight and Sound has only recently reopened with appropriate social distancing guidelines.  We were able to go and enjoy the show and have a nice dinner out afterwards. Things felt almost normal, except for the masks.

Pam says that this was her favorite show, and I understand why.  The plot was amazingly true to the Biblical text. And yet the story was staged so successfully that, even though we knew the story well, we felt the rising tension as the twists and turns of the story unfolded. And it was especially powerful to hear Mordecai deliver the climactic monologue of the entire drama as he challenged Esther to risk her position and even her life to rescue the Jewish people from certain annihilation:

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 4:14

What struck me in a fresh way, was the series of disasters that actually propelled Esther into her position of influence in the first place. There was the death of her parents causing her to be placed under the care of her cousin, Mordacai. Then, the humiliation and deposing of the royal queen, Vashti by a lewd and drunken monarch.  There was the immoral decree that forcibly abducted and conscripted Esther, an observant Jew, and many other young innocent girls into the pagan King’s harem. Then, there’s the rise of the antisemitic Haman into his position as chief advisor to the king and the passing of the unalterable decree that all Jewish people should be exterminated.    Any one of these circumstances would be enough to shake your faith and cause you to question: “What’s going on, God? Why are you allowing this to happen?  What good can come of this? And don’t you see or care that we are suffering?”

But God is a Master Weaver.  He takes the dark threads that the Enemy spins, and weaves them into a magnificent tapestry with such skill that the enemies of God are exposed and the people of God are rescued.  He didn’t stop the evil from happening, but he superseded it.  He used evil actions to advance his kingdom, show himself strong and ultimately to bless his children. If God can do that then, could he be doing it again now… in your life and mine? … in our nation and world?

We live in dark times.  It’s easy to lose hope.  Maybe you are experiencing a season of great struggle.  It certainly feels that way on the nation level as we grapple with the pile up of floods, fires, pandemic, national debt, civil unrest, racial animosity, and a divisive election.  We seem to be careening from one crisis to another. But God is still writing the story and his purposes cannot be thwarted.  It may get worse, or it may get better, but as God’s people, we can be assured that God will weave the dark threads of the Enemy and our suffering into an outcome that will glorify His name.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28