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THE LOTTERY QUEEN #6

HEADS YOU WIN, TAILS YOU DIE

It was all in the hands of one man.  Governor George W. Bush had it in his power to pick up a pen, sign an order for clemency, and Karla Faye Tucker would live.  Or . . . he could turn thumbs down, reject the last-minute appeal, and allow the pretty 38-year-old born-again Christian who was on Death Row in Huntsville, Texas to be strapped down on the lethal-injection gurney and die.

Let her live — let her die.  In the end, it was all up to the one man, the chief executive in the governor’s mansion in Austin, Texas.  And as you recall, the governor said no.  Karla Faye Tucker, who had killed Jerry Lynn Dean and Deborah Thornton with a pickax, was herself put to death.

That’s always a dramatic 11^th-hour moment when the fate of someone’s life rests in the hands of that one all-powerful decision-maker.  And just such a moment is coming up in our story of THE LOTTERY QUEEN.

First though, as we resume our journey through this roller-coaster ride of a plot, there’s the little matter of King Xerxes’ stamp on a piece of paper.  If you were with us on Friday, Prime Minister Haman son of Hammedatha, the villain here in the book of Esther, was angry with a Jew named Mordecai simply because this minor court official wouldn’t bow down to him.  But rather than just have his enemy tarred and feathered or tossed into a Persian prison, Haman cooked up a scheme to have the entire Jewish race wiped off the face of the earth.  He even cast lots, picking out a date when the gods would be smiling on his proposed holocaust.

And now he goes in to see the king, whose new queen, unbeknownst to everybody, is a Jewess herself!  But notice here the lame vagueness of this prime minister’s request.  Chapter three, verse eight:

“Then Haman said to King Xerxes, ‘There is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different from those of all other people and who do not obey the king’s laws.”  Translated — there’s one guy who won’t flop down on the ground whenever I walk by.  Haman goes on.  “It is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them.” 

Commentator David Cline makes this chilling observation:

“[This is] an appeal to the king’s dignity and sense of racial superiority.”  Then he adds: “This is not the last time that Jewish and Aryan ‘interests’ will conflict.”

And now Haman makes an incredible offer.  Verse nine:

“If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will put ten thousand talents of silver into the royal treasury for the men who carry out this business.”

And that’s it.  “Your Majesty, there are people I’d like to wipe out.  They’re no good, and if you’ll just sign right here, I’ll be happy to slaughter them for you.”

Well, what would any monarch with an ounce of responsibility, let alone decency, ask?  “You want to massacre an entire race of people?  Well, WHO?!!”  But this King Xerxes, having no concept whatsoever about who Haman plans to slaughter — how many people, who they are, what they mean to the empire . . . and maybe even if he might be married to one of these people — he gives a big shrug and hands over his presidential pen.  Actually the royal signet ring.  Here’s verse 11:

“‘Keep the money,’ the king said to Haman, ‘and do with the people as you please.’”

You know, friend, I know that you and I aren’t kings and queens.  But we’re sons and daughters of a King, aren’t we?  And I believe that the people of God need to do a better job of acting like royalty than this pathetically stupid, unquestioning, morally impotent man sitting on the throne of Persia.

How many times a day are we confronted with decisions presented to us by others — and maybe we’re tempted to just lay down and let someone else run right over our consciences?  “Hey, let’s go over here.”  And we give a lazy, half-drugged answer: “Okay.”  “Let’s persecute so-and-so.”  “Okay.”  Or some preacher or teacher comes along — maybe they have a Christian program on the radio, even — and they tell you: “Take my word for it.  This or that is gospel truth.”  And without getting out our own Bibles, we nod our heads like puppets.  “Okay.  Whatever you say, Pastor Lonnie.”

Listen, friend, let me urge you here to do the same thing I need to do 365 days of every year.  Be awake out there!  Because there are Hamans in our lives, people who are bent on doing wicked deeds and spreading wicked beliefs and taking us down with them.  And this unbelievable laziness of a king — “Go ahead.  Kill these whoever-they-are’s . . . I don’t care” — is a powerful spiritual warning to every one of us considering this story.

It’s interesting to note that this Haman was so intent on wiping out Mordecai and his entire race that he offers the king one of the biggest baksheeshes of all time:  a wheel-greasing gratuity or bribe of ten thousand talents of silver; that’s something like 345 metric tons.  Translated into Year 2000 dollars, approximately twenty million bucks.  The secular historian Herodotus records that the entire income for the Persian empire for a year, the whole GNP, was something like 14,560 talents of silver, so this offer amounted to two-thirds of that huge amount.  

Some Bible students have conjectured that Haman didn’t exactly have this $20,000,000 in his wallet or have that kind of credit limit on his platinum VISA card.  Instead, he planned to reap that staggering sum of money by plundering the goods of all the Jews he slaughtered, and then turn in the money to the king.  Remember that Persia’s bank accounts had been kind of wiped out by the recent failed war against Greece, so it had to be a tempting offer.

But here’s another slice of stupidity by the king.  Haman pretends to be so concerned for the king and his dignity.  “I’m doing this for you, Your Majesty.”  But then he gives himself away with this mountain of silver.  Something pretty desperate is pushing Haman’s button, but the king doesn’t even notice.  He just tells him to go for it.

So the announcement went out.  Incredibly, the execution date was still eleven months away, but the notices were posted on the Internet and on every tree of the kingdom.  On the thirteenth day of the 12^th month, any Jew anywhere could be killed and his goods confiscated.  And of course, the Jews were helpless.  There was nowhere to go, nowhere to run or hide.  It was going to be eleven months of psychological terror while they waited to die — according to the law of the Medes and Persians, “which altereth not.”

Well, the Bible tells us that Xerxes and Haman sat down to have a drink, but the city of Susa was bewildered.  Where was this coming from?  Even the non-Jews couldn’t comprehend something so evil, so unbelievably stupid.  The kingdom was in turmoil.  And you can imagine Mordecai, who was the real target of it all.  Here’s chapter four, verse one:

“When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly.”

Queen Esther found out about what her stepfather was doing, but still hadn’t heard the reason why.  So she sent one of her attendants, named Hathach, to find out what this brouhaha was all about.  The servant brought back a copy of the edict along with Mordecai’s urgent request that Esther go into the king’s presence — please! — to beg for mercy, to ask him to spare her people.  Keep in mind again: the king did not know that his own wife was a Jew, marked for extermination.

And this brings us to that dreadful, Death Row moment.  Live or die?  Here’s Esther’s reply to Mordecai, from the Clear Word paraphrase:

“All the king’s officials and people throughout the empire know that if any man or woman [or queen] steps inside the inner court and stands at the royal entrance to see the king without being summoned, he will be put to death.  That’s the law.”  But then here’s Governor Bush’s second option.  “The only exception,” she adds, “is if the king decides to hold out his golden scepter to that person, then his life would be spared.  To make matters worse, for some reason the king has not wanted to see me lately — he hasn’t called for me for over a month.”

So it comes down to this.  Catch the king in a good mood and he might hold out that golden scepter and let her live.  But one misstep, one rumble of indigestion or crankiness because it’s hot or because the Dallas Cowboys just lost — and even the queen can be put to death.  He’s already dumped one queen over practically nothing, and everybody knows it.

Mordecai sends back an answer, and this is as close as the book of Esther ever comes to mentioning God. 

“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.”

Maybe he thought the disgrace of cowardice, of doing nothing would prevent God from saving Esther too.  But then Mordecai adds this marvelous, unforgettable line:

“Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

And this young girl, just a kid named Esther, thrust into power and now into the vortex of such drama, gives an answer we should never forget.  “Everybody pray,” she says.  “Everybody.  Every Jew in the city.  We won’t eat, we won’t drink.  For three days.  Here in the palace my attendants and I will pray too.”  Then here’s verse 16, which is where we’ll end for today:

“When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law.  And if I perish, I perish.”