What comes to mind when you think of your father or mother? For some, the thought is uplifting. For others, it’s devastating. Yet the Bible says, “Honor your father and mother” and provides no exception clause for those of us who have had horrific experiences at the hands of our parents. So what does it means to honor them? How do we do this?
The most important person in your life is your father. He has more power than anyone to influence you—for good or for evil. Hearing the word “father,” does it conjure up amazing memories, or does it cause you to sense loss because he has abandoned, betrayed, failed you? What kind of father are or will you be? Strive to become like Father God and bless your children the way he has blessed you.
As a Christian, you’ve been adopted by God the Father, given a new identity, and welcomed into a family with Jesus as your big Brother. You’ve been adopted to worship. So, do not engage in sinful behavior. Do imitate God by walking in love as children of light, discerning what pleases him, making the best use of time, being filled with the Spirit, giving thanks, and submitting to one another.
When we pray, we’re talking to our Dad. Prayer can be silent or aloud. You can pray alone or in a group. God always answers prayer with: yes, no, or later. Prayer can cause God to act, but oftentimes prayer is to change us. Praying also keeps us from grumbling and gossiping. From Paul’s prayer for his church, we learn that prayer is personal, relational, asking, yearning, expecting, and revealing.
In life and at the cross, God works through reversals. Repentance from us plus reversals from God equals rejoicing. God’s people in Persia were sentenced to death, but in a reversal, they put their enemies to death. With this reversal, God’s people went from mourning and fasting to rejoicing and feasting. Our sin brought us death, but in the greatest reversal, Jesus’ death brought us life.
Through the story of God’s covenant people in Esther, we learn to not question God’s providence, but assume it. “Coincidence” is the non-Christian’s word for providence. We learn from the examples of Haman and Mordecai that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. And grieving accomplishes nothing without repenting, as we see when Haman only has worldly sorrow and never truly repents.
Mordecai and Esther aren’t perfect, but they’re making progress and changing. Mordecai’s faith is activated in mourning and weeping. He trusts that God is always with his people, and that God is in control. Esther’s faith is action in the face of opposition and possible death. Only she can serve as mediator to reconcile Xerxes and her people, just as Jesus is the one mediator between God and men.
King Xerxes chased glory but received misery, trying to replace God with a woman to use, not love. We meet Mordecai and his adopted daughter, Esther, who are part of the compromised, worldly, disobedient people of God living away from Jerusalem. Esther wasn’t walking with God but God still walked with her, giving her favor, changing and saving her heart and life so that she could save his people.
Marriage is a covenant, not a contract. Every covenant—including the new covenant of salvation—has a head, who is ultimately responsible for the covenant. The husband is the covenant head of a marriage; he is responsible for his marriage, his wife, and his kids. Similarly, Christ took that which was not his fault—our sin—and he made it his responsibility on the cross. He is our covenant head.
Pregnant Mary walks many miles to visit pregnant Elizabeth so they can share in each other’s joy and be in community together. The baby in Elizabeth’s womb, John the Baptizer, leaps for joy when he hears Mary’s greeting, and Elizabeth prophesies that Mary is blessed. Thus, we see that a baby in the womb is indeed a baby, that children are a blessing from God, and that abortion is murder. We all, through sin, have bloody hands as murderers of Jesus, but he offers his nail-scarred hands—life for life—to save us. He died in our place for our sin, and the proper response is faith and worship, as exemplified by Mary, Elizabeth, and John.