A Tale of Three Feasts
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The Feast of Regret
The Feast of Regret
Some time later, when King Ahasuerus’s rage had cooled down, he remembered Vashti, what she had done, and what was decided against her. The king’s personal attendants suggested, “Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king. Let the king appoint commissioners in each province of his kingdom, so that they may gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem at the fortress of Susa. Put them under the supervision of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, keeper of the women, and give them the required beauty treatments. Then the young woman who pleases the king will become queen instead of Vashti.” This suggestion pleased the king, and he did accordingly.
These verses tell us what happened after a great feast. The king was letting everyone celebrate people were over doing it and as happens when people over-do it there are bound to be regrets.
Regrets almost always occur because of choice and lack of communication. (talk about eating too much and regretting it later)
We choose to over do it. We choose to disassociate, we choose to build walls around ourselves, we choose to step out of relationship, the choices as to why we have regrets in our lives are endless and we have all made choices that have lead us to that place of sorrow and regret. Regret is only useful if it leads us to change. Too many times regret leads to self isolation. We were not created to isolate ourselves away from everyone, to ignore our need for God in our life.
Which leads to the other cause of regret. Lack of communication. We stop communicating with each other, with family members, with God. We don’t always mean to. In fact many times we intend to communicate more, we plan on making that phone call, on saying hello, on sending a card. We plan on reaching out, we plan on keeping the lines of communication open, but time and misunderstanding, and pride happen and with each of those things comes another brick in the wall that we build, usually to protect ourselves from the hurt that we fear we will fear or that we will cause.
This first feast was a feast of regret, because the king made a decision without really thinking out the full consequences of his actions. We too have times where we make those decisions. (expound)
The Feast of Revelation
The Feast of Revelation
Then Mordecai returned to the King’s Gate, but Haman hurried off for home, mournful and with his head covered. Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened. His advisers and his wife Zeresh said to him, “Since Mordecai is Jewish, and you have begun to fall before him, you won’t overcome him, because your downfall is certain.” While they were still speaking with him, the king’s eunuchs arrived and rushed Haman to the banquet Esther had prepared.
The king and Haman came to feast with Esther the queen. Once again, on the second day while drinking wine, the king asked Esther, “Queen Esther, whatever you ask will be given to you. Whatever you seek, even to half the kingdom, will be done.”
Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if the king is pleased, spare my life; this is my request. And spare my people; this is my desire. For my people and I have been sold to destruction, death, and annihilation. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept silent. Indeed, the trouble wouldn’t be worth burdening the king.”
King Ahasuerus spoke up and asked Queen Esther, “Who is this, and where is the one who would devise such a scheme?”
Esther answered, “The adversary and enemy is this evil Haman.”
Haman stood terrified before the king and queen.
Feasts of revelation can be the start of something amazing in our personal and more importantly our spiritual lives. They offer us the chance to start fresh. To put all that we have our concerns, our worries, our frustratations and our failures on the table. When we are willing to do that, when we are willing to reveal all of who we are then things begin to happen. Esther had a choice to make. She could easily have hidden out in the palace when all hell broke loose. No one knew about who she really was, she would have been safe… at least theoretically but Esther’s uncle points something very important out to her.
Mordecai told the messenger to reply to Esther, “Don’t think that you will escape the fate of all the Jews because you are in the king’s palace. If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father’s family will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.”
Personal revelation always comes at a cost. When we begin to reveal who we really are, not who we want people to believe we are we are placing ourselves at the mercy of those around us. And when we finally reveal ourselves to God, the one who knows us, who made us, and who already knows all the things we think we are hiding. He is able to do some amazing things. Not because he didn’t know about our mess in the first place, but because we are finally ready to accept what he has been offering all along. (expound)
The Feast of Reassurance
The Feast of Reassurance
But the Jews in Susa had assembled on the thirteenth and the fourteenth days of the month. They rested on the fifteenth day of the month, and it became a day of feasting and rejoicing. This explains why the rural Jews who live in villages observe the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a time of rejoicing and feasting. It is a holiday when they send gifts to one another.
Mordecai recorded these events and sent letters to all the Jews in all of King Ahasuerus’s provinces, both near and far. He ordered them to celebrate the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar every year because during those days the Jews gained relief from their enemies. That was the month when their sorrow was turned into rejoicing and their mourning into a holiday. They were to be days of feasting, rejoicing, and of sending gifts to one another and to the poor.
The life that we are able to live post Revelation feast is an amazing life,or can be. The feast of Purim serves as a reminder that God has the Isrealites back. It’s a reassurance that he will care for, them and protect them, that he has their best interest at Heart.
Our lives can be marked in the same way. We can remember the wonder and beauty that comes from a no holds barred here’s my mess kind of relationship with God. This can translate to our every day life as well. Living life where you hand others who you know and love and trust the keys to your mess, having someone to say I’m lost, I’m hurting, I need help is one of the most freeing experiences that there are.
(Expound) Charlie Brown tie in.
This Week’s Challenge
This Week’s Challenge
What feast are you partaking in on a regular basis.
Regret, Revelation, or Reassurance?
If its the first two talk to God about what it will take to move forward into that place of living reassured of your place in God.