Esther: Our Intercessor

Esther 4:15-16

15 Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer,

16 Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.

Esther is one of the most dramatic stories in the Bible. It starts off with the queen of Persia being banished. This leads to a beauty contest and through one of God's divine plot twists, a poor Hebrew orphan raised by her cousin becomes queen of the most powerful empire on the planet at the time. Her cousin works in the palace of the king as a guard and is hated by the man who is visier, second to only the king. Because of this, the visier decides to kill all of this man's family. He doesn't know that the queen is a relative of this man. And that is where we pick up the story and I see a picture of Jesus.

Mordecai, the palace guard, is seen crying by his cousin Esther's maids. After a back and forth with their messengers Mordecai tells Esther to go to King Ahasueres. Esther saw that God had sent her as the intercessor for her people. Just as Esther was placed in the palace as the intercessor for Israel, Jesus was sent to earth as the intercessor for us. There are two similarities between Esther and Jesus as they intercede for those they love. 

First, both were willing to lay down their lives. Esther said in Esther 4:16, "... and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish." By going before the king uninvited, she could have been put to death. Jesus DID lay down His life for us.

Secondly, they both went before a king to intercede for their people. Esther went before King Ahasueres and asked him and Haman to come to dinner. At that dinner, she asked them to come to another dinner. Finally, at their third meeting, she laid her request before the king, for her life and for the lives of her people. Jesus Christ goes before God, the ultimate King, to make intercession for us. Romans 8:34 says, "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us."

Now ultimately, this study on Christ is to show us who we are to be. Paul writes to Timothy in I Timothy 2:1, "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;" We are called by God to intercede for one another. James 5:16 says, "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." The Bible is full of prayer, and this prayer of intercession is one of the most important prayers that we can pray.