In a place where two malignant narcissists ruled, so did cruelty, enmity, chaos.
Yet of all the evils the two had committed, nothing came close to this. Its brutality, its sheer heartlessness, was incomprehensible. What’s more, the power the two men had to do as they pleased seemed impregnable.
And thus two leaders sat in luxury, drinking a toast to themselves, while people across the land heard news that left them in utter shock.
Xerxes and Haman had deemed an entire people group “the enemy” – and had set in motion a plan to exterminate every man, woman and child.
What had triggered such an act? One person had not treated Haman as his inflated self-image demanded. Quietly but persistently, Mordecai the Jew had refused to bow before a leader who openly, actively hated his people.
Mordecai must have known how viciously Haman retaliated when offended. Mordecai must have been prepared to die for his stand. But he was not prepared for Haman to turn his rage against the entire Jewish nation, and to elicit the help of King Xerxes to take them out.
Profound lament
So what did Mordecai and his people do?
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. But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it.
In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes. (Esther 4:1-3)
The people might have responded to the death sentence decreed against them by rising up immediately to defend themselves. Ah, but it would have been a suicide mission. They might have decided to eat, drink and be merry in the short months till they died.
Instead, they mourned and fasted, humbling their souls before their God. Mordecai may have mourned most fervently of all. Mourning was not all that he and his people did. But it was the first thing. They lamented with one voice.
Courage to see
We know of only one Jew in all Persia who did not initially mourn. Her name was Esther.
When Esther’s eunuchs and female attendants came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them.
Then Esther summoned Hathak, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why. So Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. (Esther 4:4-6)
Cloistered in the king’s palace, Esther the queen apparently had no idea that her people faced total annihilation. She did not know what was happening until the father who had adopted her gave her a full report.
She got the report because Mordecai found a way where there was none, to let her know something was desperately wrong. He went to the king’s gate. There, as close to Esther’s quarters as he could get, he mourned “loudly and bitterly.” He knew Esther would hear of his mourning. He knew she would send to find out more.
Esther loved Mordecai. On hearing of his open display of grief, she felt anguish akin to the pain of childbirth. Yet, notice what she did first:
She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth.
She addressed the symptom, not the real issue. She tried to make the problem go away without actually finding out what it was. She encouraged the mourner to stop mourning.
But he would not accept them.
Mordecai refused the clothes, and continued to mourn.
To Esther’s credit, she didn’t stop there. She gathered her courage and sent “to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why.” No longer urging, “Please, stop it!” she faced what she didn’t want to know and opened herself to grieve too.
Everything except mourning
Like Esther, we may not see where evil is running unchecked – and cannot know what to do about it – until our Father shows us. Like Esther, we may not want to see what our Father is seeking to reveal.
Like Mordecai, our Father goes to extraordinary lengths to uncover what will grieve us, then to challenge us to conduct his grace into that very place.
When we do face what we haven’t wanted to see, we may still refuse to grieve. Alarmed to find evil ruling, destroying and seemingly sure to win, we often do everything except mourn.
Sometimes, we rise up, panic-stricken, to act. Flailing wildly, we launch sincere, desperate efforts that do not conduct grace across the gap. The more apparent it becomes that our efforts aren’t accomplishing what we’d hoped, the more obsessively we may pursue them, the more determined we may become to make them work.
Or, we sink into despair. We throw up our hands, hunker down and give up.
Or, we retreat into a different kind of denial. We convince ourselves that the situation isn’t that bad, that there is no cause for alarm.
Or, unable to beat it, we decide to join it. We adopt the “eat, drink and be merry” approach. We use our drug of choice – food, alcohol, work, shopping, TV, social networking, frantic religious activity (to name a few) – to numb us to the pain of the situation, to make us feel good in the moment and to put off indefinitely any real look at how it’s going to play out.
We do everything but mourn.
When we embrace mourning
Evil can rule anywhere – in families and communities, in organizations and workplaces, in governments, in church cultures. Where evil rules, so do cruelty, enmity, chaos. Where evil rules, everyone – everyone – is at once the enemy, the supply, the pawn.
Mourning hurts a lot. It does not feel positive and uplifting. It feels useless and depleting. It feels like some rough hand has torn open a huge hole in your gut.
Yet mourning God’s way does not equal despair. Rather, it enlarges your spirit. It deepens your capacity to receive grace. It increases your ability to propel life into those gaps where the Evil One has laid waste.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted. (Matt. 5:4)
Sometimes the comfort arises as God calls on the mourner to help redeem and restore the loss. Out of deep grief, come fervent cries of humility and faith. Those cries release superabundant grace into lives and situations. And thus, where sin abounds, mourning can significantly deepen and widen the conduit for receiving and conducting grace.
When evil seems invincible …
May our Father in heaven show us what we desperately need to see, but may not want to know.
May our Savior who grieved in the garden teach us to mourn the evil, fully and deeply, not with worldly sorrow, but with godly grief.
May the Spirit of God enlarge our human spirits, as the painful work of grieving creates a chasm within us that our Lord transforms into a mighty conduit for his grace.
As we see and grieve, may we know in our inmost being what Ephesians 1:18-23 describes: the hope to which our Father has called us, and the incomparable greatness of his power.
May we lay hold of the courage God gives us, to take the next step, and the next, that he has brought us to this moment to do.
This post is adapted from chapter 8 of The Esther Blessing: Grace to Reign in Life. It was originally published September 6, 2020, under the title, “Where narcissists rule.”
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
This is so good! Thank you!
You’re welcome, Rebecca!
Your God given ability to see things that alot of us just gloss over is incredible Deborah! Thank you for continuing to seek to know and understand and then teach and share what you know.
Wow. Thank you, Rowena!