Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Hello, dear ones.

It’s an overcast and pleasant morning here at present. Bimbo is here beside me, ready to do a jog with me after I send this. I’m not sure if we’ll keep Bimbo around here much longer. The ratio of benefit and trouble that he represents does not seem to be well balanced on the side of benefit.

Running 4”x15”x 17’ timbers through my planer is not an easy task. But that’s some of what I face today.

May you be successful with your tasks today.

Love, Dad/Ray.

“Now the tables were turned.” Were they ever! The edict to exterminate the Jews on a certain day was not revoked—but the second edict had the same affect—and then some. Through the influence of Esther and Mordecai, King Xerxes decreed that the Jews be given “the right to assemble and protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate any armed force” (8:11) formed against them. This is absolutely wild! The decree to have the Jews wiped out by their enemies was trumped by a decree that gave authorization for the Jews to wipe out their enemies. And they did!

Tables are also turned in my own enjoyment of the story. I am forced to endure more treachery and bloodshed. How can I get hyped and happy over these images of butchery? “The Jews struck down all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and they did what they pleased to those who hated them. In the citadel of Susa, the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men. They also killed…the ten sons of Haman…the enemy of the Jews” (9:5-10). And in other provinces of the kingdom, “they killed seventy-five thousand of them” (9:16). Yippee! I would be interested to know what standard they used in determining who was an enemy and who wasn’t—and what might constitute a borderline case. I’m not so naïve and gullible as to think there was not a good deal of unjust atrocity mixed in with this counter massacre.

Sweet little gorgeous Esther was capable of some brutal vengeance too—not unlike Herodias in Matthew 14 who exercised her royal privileges to indirectly order the beheading of John the Baptist. Esther, when given the opportunity, requested to have “Haman’s ten sons be hanged on gallows” (9:13). If they were already dead, perhaps she wished that their deadness be put on public display as a symbol of triumph and warning.

OK—maybe my squirming with all this blood and guts presents me as a wimpy believer. You have to decide. You’re certainly free to be happy about it all if you want. But I’m afflicted with a sense of futility in it all—partly because the historical record simply will not allow a valid entry that says, “And they lived happily ever after.”

Furthermore, I’m convinced that I’m not supposed to like blood and guts—any more than I’m supposed to like hell. I’m convinced that I’m supposed to be characterised by a longing and prayer that says, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10, KJV). I’m convinced that earth’s will, which is bound by the NATURAL SIN NATURE, will never solve earth’s problems. That’s what history is—an ongoing demonstration of that fact. I’m convinced that His will will only be universally done on earth as it is in heaven when earth becomes universally integrated with heaven. Until then, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8:22-23). Until then, I encourage you to keep groaning. Until then, keep singing, “UNTIL THEN.”