If we look in the Bible, we can see many examples of boldness in both men and women. Today, let’s talk about the boldness of Esther to save the lives of her people, even to the point of risking her own life. To give a little background, Esther was a Jew. She had an older cousin named Mordecai who had taken her in as a daughter when she was a child (he is important in this story). Esther had been chosen by King Ahasuerus to be his second wife after his first wife was disobedient and banned from seeing him again. In the process of the king finding his new wife, Mordecai advised Esther to keep her identity as a Jew to herself. He also overheard some of the king’s guards plotting to attack the king and told Esther, who told the king. The men were killed, a new man was promoted, and it was recorded that Mordecai had saved the king.

When Haman was promoted to be the king’s right hand man, the king told everyone to bow down and honor him. Mordecai did not do this, as he was a Jew, and Jews were not to bow down to anyone but God. This angered Haman so he sought to destroy all of the Jews in the kingdom. In order to do this, he wrote up a decree for the king to sign and distributed it throughout the whole kingdom. When Mordecai saw this decree, he requested help from Queen Esther. In this time, anyone who entered the king’s inner court without invitation would be put to death unless the king held out his golden scepter to them. Esther had not been invited, so she had to be bold to go to the king and hope that her life would be spared. With the reminder from her cousin that she was no safer from the decree in the palace than any other Jew in the kingdom, and the question that has become so well known in the Christian community, “And who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14), Esther asked that all the Jews fast for three days and said that she would do the same. After three days, she took the first bold step to saving her people’s lives and went to the king, uninvited.

The king held out his scepter to his wife and told her that he would give her whatever she requested, even up to half of the kingdom. Esther requested the king and Haman to join her in a feast that same day and they agreed. At the feast, the king again asked what Esther wanted and repeated his assurance that he would give anything up to half the kingdom. Again, Esther invited Haman and the king to a feast that she would prepare, this time the next day, and said she would give her request at that feast. Haman was very pleased with himself that he was the only person besides the king that was invited to the feasts, but as he left, he saw Mordecai unwilling to honor him at the gate. This angered him as he went home and he prepared a wooden device called gallows to hang Mordecai. That night, however, the king was reminded of Mordecai’s good deeds toward him and made Haman honor Mordecai.

The second feast came and this was the time for Queen Esther to be bold not only with her husband, but also with the man who wished to kill all of her people. Again, the king asked what Esther requested and promised up to half the kingdom. “Then Queen Esther answered, ‘If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request. For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king.’ Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, ‘Who is he, and where is he, who has dared to do this?’ And Esther said, ‘A foe and enemy! This wicked Haman!’ Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen” (Esther 7:3-6). After this feast, Haman was hanged on the gallows that he had made for Mordecai.

One more time, Esther had to be bold and ask the king for a letter to be written to revoke the decree that had been sent out to destroy the Jews. The king allowed Mordecai and Esther to write an edict in the king’s name and using his ring to seal it as anything written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s ring could not be revoked. “And an edict was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews, to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces, to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language, and also to the Jews in their script and their language. And he wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed it with the king’s signet ring” (Esther 8:9b-10a). When all of the Jews in the kingdom received the edict, they rejoiced, all because of Queen Esther and the boldness that she showed in the face of death and the deaths of her people.

Abbi