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THE LOTTERY QUEEN #10

WALKING LIKE A WINNER

It’s probably the second biggest jackpot lottery win of all time.  A couple of years back, a multistate Powerball game’s betting pool exploded in size, hitting a record $295.7 million.  People were driving hundreds of miles to get to one of the 20 states where they could buy tickets; people stood in line for hours to plop down thirty or fifty or a hundred bucks.  Odds against winning: 80 million to one.

Well, you probably read how a group of 13 machine workers from Ohio had been playing for a whole decade.  “The Lucky 13,” they had always called themselves, despite their ten years of losing.  It was a secret group; they never announced who the other players were.  If someone quit, there was a waiting line of people wanting to join the club.  And when the July game’s jackpot went through the stratosphere, they elected one person to drive 100 miles to get to Indiana, where the game was available.  He stopped at a Speedway gas station just across the border and plunked down $130 for tickets — ten from each member of the pool.  And at 10:59 p.m. on July 29, the thirteen machine workers became multimillionaires.  Taking their winnings in a lump sum, they scored 12½ million dollars each.

Well, friend, I’m here on this lucky Friday to remind you of two things.  First of all, for every winner there are a lot of losers.  Secondly, this Powerball jackpot comes in second, in my opinion, to the lottery story we’ve been studying together for two weeks.  In fact, millions of people around the world celebrate something that quite frankly is called the Lottery Holiday.  That’s right.  Did you know that the Jewish holiday, Purim, held on the 14^th of Adar, which this year was on March 21, is called the Feast of Lots?  The pur is the kind of lot or fortune-telling process the bad guy in our Bible story, Prime Minister Haman, used to pick this as the best date to slaughter the Jewish nation.

Well, the average Bible reader might respond to this biblical Powerball game with two questions. First of all, isn’t this a bad Lotto event, not a good one, because it predicts the demise of the Jewish race? Why do people celebrate it?  But on the other hand, after what we enjoyed reading together yesterday, hasn’t the whole crisis evaporated?  I mean, Haman is dead!  The antagonist in our play has been impaled and then hung up to dangle on his own 75-foot-high gallows in full view of the entire city of Susa.  The crisis is over, isn’t it?  It sounds like that as we, in a much more relaxed frame of mind now, read the first verses of chapter eight:

“That same day King Xerxes gave Queen Esther the estate of Haman, the enemy of the Jews.  And Mordecai came into the presence of the king, for Esther had told how he was related to her.  The king took off his signet ring, which he had reclaimed from Haman, and presented it to Mordecai.”  That makes Mordecai prime minister now — a nice little wrap-up to the story, going back to the classic tale, A Thousand and One Nights.  And the Bible verse concludes: “And Esther appointed him [Mordecai] over Haman’s estate.”

It’s much to our surprise, then, when the very next verse puts us right back in crisis mode.  DefCon Five.  Notice from the Living Bible:

“And now once more Esther came before the king, falling down at his feet and begging him with tears to stop Haman’s plot against the Jews.  And again the king held out the golden scepter to Esther.  So she arose and stood before him, and said, ‘If it please Your Majesty, and if you love me, send out a decree reversing Haman’s order to destroy the Jews throughout the king’s provinces.  For how can I endure it, to see my people butchered and destroyed?’”

It’s hard to comprehend here at the dawn of the 21^st century, where laws are changed constantly and where here in America we just voted in a new guy, and where Vladimir Putin trades in prime ministers every few weeks, but the simple truth of Medo-Persia was that royal decrees could not be changed.  “According to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not,” is a very common expression in these Old Testament books.  Maybe you recall how King Xerxes’ own father, Darius, signed an absolutely idiotic law into effect which put his own trusted prime minister and friend, Daniel, into the lions’ den.  It was an insane piece of legislation, and the king realized it too late. But vetoes and overrides and getting a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress were concepts that hadn’t yet been introduced, and all of a sudden here in the story of Esther, we realize that the danger hasn’t passed at all.  It’s like one of those scary midnight TV shows where you think the monster is dead, and all at once you hear yet another thump coming from the sewer.  It’s still out there.

So here in Esther chapter eight, even though Haman is dead, the Haman Bill is very much alive.  On the 13^th day of Adar, which is the 12^th month, the Jews are still supposed to be wiped out.  That’s on the books and posted on every community bulletin board throughout the 127 provinces of Persia.  And even the king can’t send out a message to tear down the notices.  That law can’t be changed, no matter how much Xerxes loves his own Jewish wife or appreciates his new Jewish prime minister.  And yes, there are enemies of the Jewish race who, despite Haman’s death, are very intent on picking up their swords and killing these strange immigrant people and plundering their goods.

So the king, who can’t reverse or rescind this legislation, does the next best thing.  Here’s what he says to Esther and Mordecai in verse eight:

“‘Now write another decree in the king’s name in behalf of the Jews as seems best to you, and seal it with the king’s signet ring — for no document written in the king’s name and sealed with his ring can be revoked.’”

And we read here in chapter eight that Mordecai drafted new legislation and sent it out by the famous Pony Express of that great kingdom.  And here’s what it said:

“The king’s edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate any armed force of any nationality or province that might attack them and their women and children; and to plunder the property of THEIR enemies.”

So Bill #2 didn’t nullify Bill #1 in a legal sense; it simply took the teeth out of it by granting the Jewish people full permission to arm and defend themselves.  The Bible tells us that when Mordecai left the king’s presence wearing his new blue-and-white robes of royalty, wearing his new crown of gold, and his new purple robe of fine linen, the entire city of Susa rejoiced, especially the huge Jewish population there.  There was “joy and gladness among the Jews, with feasting and celebrating,” says verse 17.  These people were energized now.  In fact, it’s very interesting to read that many non-Jews, people of other nationalities, either became Jews or at least claimed to be Jews in order to gain that same kind of favor, that royal protection.

Well, friend, our time’s about gone, and we already guess the ending. The appointed day for slaughter was still nine months off, but by the time the 13^th day of Adar rolled around, there weren’t too many enemies with the stomach to go up against the well-oiled military machine of the Jewish defenders.  In fact, the Jewish army just in the city of Susa killed 500 attackers, including, by the way, the ten sons of Haman.  You can read how Esther, in a kind of human moment, got the king to grant a second day of revenge, and even permitted her to display the ten corpses of Haman’s sons on Haman’s own gallows.  Throughout the empire of Persia, enemy casualties totaled something like 75,000.

And as we mentioned earlier, Queen Esther, truly the “Lottery Queen” — except that God changed the odds of the game — and Mordecai sent out word that the people of God should celebrate.  Two days every year would be called Purim, the Feast of Lots, where there would be parties and praising, giving gifts and giving thanks.  The day which was going to be so terrible, with such weeping, turned into a monumental triumph instead.

Imagine with me that we, here on November 17, 2000, are lottery winners.  No, not that we’ve scored a jackpot of $12.5 million.  But that our lives have been spared.  You were slated to die; the legislation was in place to have you killed . . . and now, by God’s grace and through His miracles, a million-to-one shot, you’re going to live instead.  And suddenly, the danger is past. Your enemies are defeated and destroyed.  Which would you celebrate more: the money or the miracle of life?

I think about those 13 machinists at Automation Tooling Systems in Ohio and the intensity of their emotions: the joy, the parties, the tingling, the tears.  And then the reality of their futures.  What a future they’ve got!  But friend, you and I who are saved, who are rescued and redeemed, have all that and much more!  Not only do we have life, eternal life, but what a future!  We’re holding a ticket which makes Powerball look like nothing.

So tell me.  Are you walking and talking like a winner?  Thinking like one and acting like one?  And especially . . . thanking God that you are one?