For Such a Time as This...
Or what time is it anyway?
The Old Testament book known as Esther is critical to Jewish identity. Christians do not pay a lot of attention to it. Curiously, the name of God never comes up. Still, those who decided to keep the book in the Jewish canon must have thought the underlying lesson would be obvious. The central theme is about the survival of the Jewish people under trying circumstances. Jews are no strangers to travail.
The back story: Mordecai, the cousin of Queen Esther, had become incensed about an order to destroy all of the Jews. His words to Esther form the message that is often quoted out-of-context. More about that momentarily. Mordecai was delighted that the unsuspecting Esther had invaded the royal household when she became queen to a king who did not know her ethnicity. In fact, the king is a bit of a buffoon.
The villain in the story is the pompous Haman, the king’s servant who convinces his boss to exterminate all of the Jews because he felt slighted when Mordecai refused to bow to him. So, Haman builds an absurdly tall gallows on which Mordecai is to be hanged.
Having secured the king’s permission to do this, a date is set, Adar 13 (this episode determines the date of the festival of Purim, a popular Jewish festival). When Mordecai learns of Haman’s plot, he rushes to the palace to inform Esther, weeping and clothed in sackcloth (Esther 4:1–3)…Jewish Women’s Archive). In his plea to Esther, Mordecai reminds her that she may well have been placed in her unique and unlikely position as queen, “for such a time as this.”
I think of moments in history in which the major players must have contemplated the gravity of the moment though which they were living. One can only do that if the consequences of an action or inaction a thing are known. I imagine Gen. Eisenhower agonizing over the D-Day invasion as the time approached. Historians have reported that he grieved over the anticipated loss of life. Perhaps his emotional state was related to his experience as a soldier—a very different reaction than what we saw from a Commander-in-Chief who launched an invasion to chase down phony “weapons of mass destruction.” Sending someone else’s sons to die struck Ike very differently, I suspect.
I suggest that we are in a moment that may be accurately described as “such a time as this.” How we meet it will be the difference between a fruitful future or one fraught with suffering and loss—a future of liberal freedom and creativity—or an epoch of repression.
Photo by Heather Zabriskie on Unsplash
The challenge, of course, is in knowing fully the danger of the present moment. Since no one can accurately predict the future, we are limited by our ability to prognosticate. There are moments—all too familiar to most of us— when we our sense of what is about to happen defies any cognitive explanation. Theologian Paul Tillich reminded us of the difference between “kronos” (clock time) and “kairos” (the fullness of time) when he spoke of the moment when “the kronos is invaded by the kairos.” We could aptly refer to it as “such a time as this.” The question arises as to how we will respond to the challenge.
Our Western culture perceives time as a linear progression of one hour or one day following another. This mindset often precludes any understanding of the unfolding of events in the larger realm. it is myopic because it centers on one moment. Time does not simply pass, but every moment holds within it the fullness of the human experience. Eisenhower knew from his own experience what was about to happen on and after June 6, 1944. I submit that he also knew in a less immediately quantifiable way what the moment would ultimately mean for those who would suffer great loss, as well as the implications for those who had not been born yet. That is is the difference between dispassionate observation and the gift of the prophet. We need prophets—now more than ever! No specialized training required.
We only know what we know, and what we know is always subject to revision. As men and women of goodwill, we can never afford to be selfish—to be so concerned with our own wellbeing that we ignore the welfare of others. Moments such as this come infrequently in history, but they are consistently and perhaps cosmically significant. In other words, the implications if an event or an epoch extend far beyond our own small world into the time beyond any perception of time as most of us understand it. The psalmist reminds us of our limited human perception and of how a thousand ages in the sight of God “are but as yesterday when it is past” (Psalm 90:4). And yet, every now and then in the course of human events, there comes a moment when the sensitive and perceptive soul senses deep within that something monumental is about to happen.
As I move about these days, I hear a number of people express express a sentiment that I find deeply disturbing. The gist of it has to do with self-preservation and even a willingness to ally with evil in the pursuit of personal security. The images of January 6, 2021, and a recollection of all the divisive rhetoric from the period between 2016 and 2020 is called up in my brain and still pierces my heart. How one can compromise admirable human values because one wrongly believes that an alliance with hate is somehow better for the pocketbook is troubling on so many levels. Rabbi Hillel the Elder was likely a contemporary of Jesus and once declared:
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, who am I? And if not now when?
President Abraham Lincoln knew that the Union could not survive half-slave and half-free, and so he issued the Emancipation Proclamation in September, 1862 with an effective date of January 1, 1863. Lincoln experts seem to be in agreement that he knew what an impact such a move would have. There has been newer research suggesting that Lincoln’s psychological state—often referred to as “melancholia”— was actually clinical depression. Lincoln was depressed. The conclusion is that depressed people often see things as bad as they actually are; he may have saved the Union—not despite his depression—but because of it!
I have my own blue moments occasionally Most of the time I can function and even be creative. But I have a deep sense that our country is in a kairos moment. Perhaps we are all here for such a time as this…
Thinking Out Loud publishes weekly on Friday at GPATRICK.SUBSTACK.COM. lease share these posts widely, and please consider subscribing to support my work.