Why Are You Sitting At The Gate?

Yesterday, we missed our church service, because the rest of my family slept in. I hold some influence in my family, but when it comes to the battle of "Mom's voice + all the alarm clocks" v. "Sleep," I'm afraid I'm fighting a losing battle. I need to fix this, but it's a struggle for another day. Anyway, we turned on our church's Zoom service, but two of the three kids were still asleep, so when they got up, I went to Youtube and opened up a message that Priscilla Shirer had shared at a Passion conference back in 2018. 

And let me tell you, it was a holy word! The Spirit's anointing was on that message, and I was wrapped up and enthralled by the very Presence of the Lord Himself as I listened to that message. I felt as if I were standing in the courtroom of heaven, before the throne of the Ancient of Days where He presided among His thousands upon thousands of angelic attendants, and the Son of Man had just stepped forward and been given authority, glory, and sovereign power!

Holiness!

And one of my kids squirmed around and yawned and asked: "How much longer is this?" Another one moaned and said, "I have a headache." The third one asked, "What does 'apostle' mean?"

And that's when I truly understood the meaning of the word: Anticlimactic.

Today, in Esther, I want to start near the end of chapter 2, because there's a significant kerfuffle in certain positions of power that happens here, and I didn't get to it yesterday. 

So, Esther 2:19: "When the virgins were assembled a second time..." and I'll pause there for a second. Esther has already been made queen. Lest we forget, two verses before this, we read that "the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins" (Esther 2:17). 

But the collecting of women continued unabated. Why is this important? Because it sets up the distance that is necessary to understand in a couple of chapters at the climax of this story. The king had his queen, the king even occasionally saw his queen... maybe... but with the influx of beautiful girls brought to his bedchamber each night, he didn't spend lots of time missing her.

Okay, continuing on. "When the virgins were assembled a second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate" (Esther 2:19).

Pausing again. So, reading this story growing up, I figured that Mordecai just had lots of time to sit around. I read about him sitting at the king's gate, and I figured maybe he played tiddly-winks while he wished Esther was back in his own home. It took me a while to realize how significant it was that Mordecai sat at the king's gate.

The gate of a city was where important business was conducted. It was essentially the senate and house chambers of congress. It's where Boaz conducted his business with the man who had a nearer right to marry Ruth than he did (Ruth 4:1-11). Further back, it's where people brought their grievances amongst themselves to the city elders to be decided (Deuteronomy 21:18-20, Joshua 20:4, etc.) Lot sat in the gateway of Sodom when the two angels arrived to rescue him from its imminent destruction (Genesis 19:1). Kings held audiences in the gateways of their cities (2 Samuel 19:8 and 1 Kings 22:10). 

In other words, the fact that Mordecai is sitting at the king's gate was significant in that it meant he was likely involved in some sort of political leadership within the city. He would have likely have been respected, perhaps even had some clout with the king.

Here's something: Mordecai held this leadership position, even though he'd told them that he was a Jew, an exile from his homeland (Esther 3:4), "but Esther had kept secret her family background and nationality just as Mordecai had told her to do, for she continued to follow Mordecai's instructions as she had done when he was bringing her up" (Esther 2:20).

I don't know why Mordecai let it be known that he was a Jew, because Jews were seen as different, possibly traitorous, given their background. In Esther 3:8, Haman (who I'm going to introduce in just a second) tells the king: "There is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different from those of all other people and who do not obey the king's laws." Jews were seen as traitors... which is an ironic assessment, given what happens here with Mordecai.

Mordecai must have understood the danger of Jewish identity in such a setting, because he made Esther promise to keep her background a secret... but he told on himself. I don't know why. Maybe I'll find out as I keep going.

Okay, anyway, it's because Mordecai is in his position sitting at the king's gate, likely filibustering and meeting in caucuses and all that (heh), that he is in prime position to hear important details, like, you know, assassination plots against the king.

Esther 2:21-23 says: "During the time Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate, Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's officers who guarded the doorway, became angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. But Mordecai found out about the plot and told Queen Esther, who in turn reported it to the king, giving credit to Mordecai. And when the report was investigated and found to be true, the two officials were hanged on a gallows. All this was recorded in the book of the annals in the presence of the king."

A lot happens in these verses -- there's a really, really steep build-up to an important and adrenaline-producing point. It's like the plot of a spy movie, right? Two guys having a whispered conversation behind the bushes, and Mordecai is just close enough to hear. He watches them walk away, maybe one of them meets his gaze, and Mordecai feels all the cortisol empty into his fight-or-flight nervous system response as he realizes: If they know that he knows what they know... he knows he's going to die. 

Ack!

So now he has to get a message to Esther. There's a risk that the messenger will see it and spread the word. Maybe there's someone he trusts to get it to her. However it happens, he manages to make her understand what's going on. 

At that point, still in the early phase of her queenship, Esther apparently still sees King Xerxes now and then. Let's call it the honeymoon period (even though the king is still stocking up his harem). Esther tells Xerxes. Xerxes investigates and "found it to be true." The two officials were hanged on a gallows (in Persian tradition, this meant that they were impaled on poles and set up on display). 

The king had his scribes dutifully record Mordecai's good service into his chronology of kingdom events...

And... the matter was forgotten.

Anticlimactic. Not that Mordecai was necessarily seeking a reward, but perhaps he hoped he could somehow get closer to the king in order to see Esther more often. I don't know. 

But nothing happened.

Which makes the insult and injury of the beginning of Esther 3 a little sharper and a little more sting-y. "After these events (some four years after Esther's selection as queen, so... honeymoon's over, y'all), King Xerxes honored Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, elevating him and giving him a seat of honor higher than that of all the other nobles" (Esther 3:1)

And look at that contrast: We've got this really cool build-up of a heroic dissolution of an assassination plot... and then the let-down of no climax in Mordecai's story. But here at the beginning of Haman's story, we have a nonevent leading to a great honor that raised Haman in prominence.

Mordecai = Unrewarded merit, Haman = Unmerited reward.

Perhaps Mordecai didn't really think about it. Maybe he was just doing his job, and it didn't matter about this slight against him. But if he did think about it, it would be natural, right?

Here are my gifts, laid out in service of my king. Why haven't you noticed?

Oh king, I've been daily meeting in your gates every morning. Every morning, I lay my sacrifices before you to honor you and to please you. And... and I don't feel your approval. I don't feel your notice. Sometimes, I wonder if you even remember that I exist. Sometimes, I wait at this gate all day long as I strive to fulfill your laws, your decrees... to do the right thing, but... even when I do, you don't notice me...

We're still talking about Mordecai, right? :)

Are we, though? 

Let's flip over to John 10:9-10, where Jesus says: "I tell you the truth, I am the Gate for the sheep. All who ever came before Me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the Gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full."

I'm not sure how it works now, but at that time period when Jesus walked the earth, when the shepherd would corral his sheep in their sheepfold, there wasn't necessarily a wooden gate in place, ready to close them in. The shepherd himself would lie down across the entrance to the sheepfold for the purpose of keeping out the wolves coming to "steal and kill and destroy." But the shepherd, himself the gate, kept out the enemy, kept the sheep safe.

So, let me ask this: What is our motive in sitting at the gate? 

Are we sitting at the gate, because the gate is the place of power? The place of decision? The place of gifts and sway and influence? See... if that's the place where we're sitting, all that effort to be noticed by the king because of our striving will only end anticlimactically.

Or are we sitting at the gate, because the gate is Jesus? Because... if that's the place we're sitting, at Jesus' feet, we have fellowship with Him and Him with us; we have protection under His watchful care. We have "chosen what is better, and it won't be taken from us" (Luke 10:42).

Mary... sat at Jesus' feet. Martha, flustered and flushed, flew around the kitchen to complete her acts of service, but in so doing, couldn't hear what her Master was saying. 

I get it. Food had to be prepared at some point. There were a lot of guys crowding into her house, and she needed to be a good hostess. 

But Mary sat at the Gate, and maybe Martha could have taken five to do the same.

"Be still... Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). Wait. Wait for Him.