Let all who fear the Lord repeat: “His faithful love endures forever.” In my distress I prayed to the Lord, and the Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me? [Psalm 118:4-6 (NLT)]
When writing about mimicry yesterday, I thought of Esther and her cousin Mordecai. The book of Esther takes place between 483 and 473 BC but the story began about 120 years earlier when Mordecai’s great-grandfather was in the second group of Jews deported from Jerusalem to Babylon. Rather than treating these deportees as captives or slaves, they were more like immigrants. Although they were given new Babylonian names, the were allowed to keep their God as long as they also worshipped the Babylonian ones. After Babylon fell to Persia in 539 BC, the first Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem the following year. Perhaps because they’d become comfortable in their new homeland or feared the challenge of rebuilding Jerusalem, like many others, Mordecai and Esther’s family did not return.
Going by their pagan names, Mordecai and Esther blended in with their neighbors. His name was a version of Marduk, the patron god of Babylon, and Esther’s was a derivative of Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of war and sexual love. Although most Jews lived away from the Persian capital of Susa, they lived in the city where Mordecai served as a government official.
When King Ahasuerus (better known as Xerxes) sent out the casting call for his new queen, Esther was one of several hundred women selected for this ancient version of “The Bachelor.” Mordecai’s motive for telling Esther to conceal her Jewish lineage is unknown. While he may have feared anti-Semitism, he also may have thought having his cousin share the king’s bed would further his career. Even though she would break Jewish law by sleeping with a man not her husband, marrying a pagan uncircumcised Gentile, and eating unclean food, Esther followed her cousin’s direction and did not reveal her heritage. Having integrated into Persian society and no longer observing Jewish law, Mordecai and Esther had become chameleons.
Esther pleased the king; she was made queen and her cousin became a palace official who served at the king’s gate. Since both commercial and judicial business took place at the city gates, Mordecai’s position was an important one, possibly that of judge. It was at the gate that he overheard a plan to assassinate the king but Mordecai intervened and the king’s life was saved. The new queen and her cousin, however, continued to conceal their ancestry until the king appointed Haman the Agagite as prime minister and second-in-command.
The proud Haman demanded that all of the king’s officials bow down to him. Although Jewish law did not prohibit bowing as a sign of respect, Haman wanted more. The word used was shachah which meant prostrating oneself by lying down flat, extending hands and feet, and placing one’s face in the dirt. Haman was demanding the sort of reverence that belongs only to God and Mordecai refused to do it. When officials asked why he wouldn’t bow, Mordecai simply replied that he was a Jew. While he may not have kept a kosher home or worn tassels on his robe, Mordecai drew the line at prostrating himself before anyone but God. The Jew’s refusal enraged Haman and set in motion his desire to exterminate the entire Jewish population in the empire. It was when Esther revealed both her heritage along with Haman’s evil plan, that the massacre was thwarted.
Unlike Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who continued to remain true to Jehovah while in captivity, both Mordecai and Esther chose to be pragmatic by compromising their faith and disguising their heritage. It was only when they stopped being chameleons and revealed their true identities that they served the one true God.
While we probably won’t be asked to save a nation, there will be times when God expects us to risk our status and security and step out in faith to serve Him. Real security, however, is not found in people, position, wealth, or power; it is found in God. When the time comes, will we be chameleons or show our true colors?
Even though they have their own unique song, northern mockingbirds usually incorporate the songs of other birds into theirs. With their ability to sound like jays, thrashers, hawks, orioles, and robins (along with car alarms and frogs), rather than sounding like themselves, these masters of mimicry can sound like what they’ve heard.
Whenever I saw the swamped canoe at the swamp/bird sanctuary, I remembered the old aluminum canoe we had at our cottage. Because it remained down at the lakefront all year long, the canoe served as winter home to the chipmunks and mice. After decades of rodents taking refuge there, the critters eventually chewed up all the foam flotation blocks in both ends of the craft. Since a boat will float only as long as it weighs less than the maximum amount of water it displaces, those empty chambers didn’t affect the canoe if it remained upright and relatively dry. But, if the craft capsized, its empty chambers would rapidly fill with water and, with the extra weight, sink. Knowing how easily the canoe could sink made us extra cautious—it was used only when the water was calm, no one deliberately tipped it, and lifejackets were required.
In the years that followed our first maze experience, we continued the pumpkin patch/corn maze tradition but at a farm with a smaller and easier maze. While there were no arrows on stakes to assist the totally confused, there was a larger and better map. Since my daughter and husband have a far better sense of direction than do I, they carried the map and led the rest of us through the maze.
Believing that God’s spirit would not enter into something flawless, various Native American people intentionally strung a wrong-colored bead (the spirit bead) into an otherwise perfect pattern of beadwork so to create an opening through which God’s spirit could flow. In a similar way, believing that a perfectly woven rug or carpet would be an offense to Allah, followers of Islam would make an intentional small mistake in their weaving. Concerned that a perfect quilt would encourage pride, imperfect squares called humility squares or blocks, are said to have been deliberately placed in quilts by Puritan women as their acknowledgment that only God is perfect.
Since my 18-year-old grand is a new driver, I was surprised when her parents purchased a new car for her. Remembering the many dings, scrapes, and dents our teens left on their cars, I asked why they’d replaced the 15-year-old car on which she learned to drive with a new one; “safety features” was their simple and logical explanation. This new car offers things like forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitoring, lane departure warnings, lane-keeping assist, backup cameras, active park assist, rear cross traffic alert, and a whole variety of air bags (front, side, seatbelt, knee, foot, and curtain along with rollover sensors to deploy them.) Knowing that accidents happen to even the best drivers, damage to a new car is far more acceptable than any damage done to their daughter!
Devotions of the Heart 