Last week, we were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, but there was another important holiday.
People sang, “When the month of Adar begins, joy increases!”
Have you ever heard of the Jewish holiday of Purim? It is the 16th and 17th of March. The tradition comes from the Book of Esther in the Bible.
Some of the tribe of Benjamin had been exiled to the country of Persia. The Persian King Ahasuerus held a beauty pageant for a new wife. One of the exiled Jews, Mordecai, worked in the king’s court and presented his cousin, Esther, a beautiful young lady to the King. It was love at first sight and the king made Esther his queen.
One day, Mordecai overheard a plot to assassinate the king and told Esther. She told the king, the plot was foiled and the king was grateful to Mordecai. The king appointed Haman – who did not like Mordecai, because he would not bow to him – as an official over his court. Angry, he decided he would have all the Jews – including Mordecai – killed.
He tricked the king into signing a law that throughout his territories, all Jews would be killed. When Mordecai and the people heard the news, they mourned, wept and fasted.
What was to become of them? Esther helped Mordecai learn how Haman was behind it all. He sends word to Esther to help deliver the Jews by appealing to the king.
She was hesitant at first, knowing she could be killed for approaching the king unsummoned. Mordecai speaks the most famous words in the book, “For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).
She asks everyone to fast and pray for three days before she approaches the king. She sets herself where the king would
see her and he invites her in. She requests two banquets with the king and Haman.
At a second banquet, the king asks her petition and she asks that she and her people’s lives be spared as they were to be killed. The king wanted to know who would do such an evil thing and she pointed to Haman. Haman was hanged on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. The Jews were allowed to defend themselves against all enemies and were not destroyed.
Mordecai and Esther proclaimed a holiday of feasting and rejoicing to be held annually, called Purim.
The day is celebrated with a feast and gifts of pastries. Offerings are received for the poor. Prayers are lifted up and the book of Esther is read. Children are allowed to dress up and go door to door and are given treats. They eat cookies with fruit fillings that are in the shape of triangles, which they call Haman’s ears.
As in the day of Esther, there is a plan to kill innocent people and bring misery and destruction to a free country. We pray that God will deliver the people of Ukraine and bring peace.
Eric Reece is the faith columnist for The Graham Star. He is pastor of Robbinsville United Methodist Church and can be reached via email, ereece@wnccumc.net.