Episode 191: Esther, Part 7--So, Where Was God?

After the storytelling is finished, there are still lots of BIG questions to wrestle with from Esther's story, and they are all pressing for our lives today.  For starters, while we may feel relieved that Esther, Mordecai, and their people get a happy ending by the end of the book, what do we do with the times in subsequent history when tragedy was not averted?  The Jewish people were saved from Haman's plot in this story, but what do we say then about the six million Jewish people who were killed by the Nazi war machine (and the quiet complicity of many more who were not explicitly Nazis) during the Holocaust?  If we say God was behind the scenes in the plot of Esther's story, where was God during the Holocaust? Or in any of history's other atrocities?  And for Esther to get her happy ending, there was a price of 75,000 other residents of the Persian Empire who were killed in the resolution of the story--what do we say about their stories?  And even just in our daily lives, how do we discern what God is guiding us to do or say in our circumstances--especially in polarized times when everyone around us seems to have a different opinion of what God's will looks like?  Maybe getting to the end of this story has opened a whole new can of worms--so join us for converation between pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve in this concluding episode of our series on Esther.