One Cog in the Wheel

Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the other Jews.  For if you keep silent at this time, liberation and rescue will arise for the Jews from another place,  Esther 4:13-14a  NASB

From another place – A few days ago my bicycle stopped working properly.  Whenever I tried to ride, it would jerk and skip when I pushed on the pedals.  I took it to the mechanic.  He discovered the problem almost immediately.  A cog in the gears wasn’t right.  Once replaced, I was off again, cruising the streets of Parma.  Mordecai says much that same thing about Esther’s role in the kingdom.  If she doesn’t do what she is able to do, she’ll be replaced by some other circumstance or person.  She is not indispensable.  Perhaps no one really is.  There are always other ways to accomplish the same goal.

This verse is typically interpreted as a hint that God will find another deliverer, but that’s not precisely what it says.  The words only tell us that rescue will somehow still happen.  In fact, the name of God isn’t found anywhere in this book (and that’s one of the reasons it wasn’t originally considered part of the canon).  But if we assume the sovereignty of God, then Mordecai’s remark implies some very interesting things.  What it suggests is that the events of our lives are contingently engineered.  If we fail at the task God expected us to perform, we can be replaced by another plan.  The straight timeline thinking of destiny isn’t the way God’s plans operate.  At each step, contingent cooperation is required, and if the cog doesn’t work, another one can be put in its place.

This way of viewing God’s handiwork in the world means that the route to fulfill His intentions is always shifting.  Every choice of human agents affects the path.  Every crossroad offers alternatives.  But none is cast in stone.  It might be that God holds the ultimate trump card, and that someday He will force the path to fit His desire.  That’s happened in the past.  In the days of Noah, God usurped human freedom.  He could do it again.  But it seems that He is very reluctant to do so.  Consequently, until He exercises sovereignty over all human action, life twists and turns according to the contingent choices we all make.  Mordecai simply articulates what we all experience.  Things change.  And God seems to find that acceptable—for now.

This view also has enormous implications for the choices of the Messiah.  The Catholic doctrine of non posse peccare (that it was impossible for Jesus to sin) obliterates human contingency in his life.  Of course, it is the concomitant of the doctrine of the Trinity, but it means that Jesus really isn’t human at all.  He is the puppet of divine will, performing a script written before the foundation of the world, without variation or error.  Unlike all of the rest of us, his life is notcontingent.  His path is set.  He can do no other.  And that, of course, means that he isn’t like us, his life isn’t like ours, his experience of the Father’s love is a foregone conclusion.  His agony in the garden is performance art.  His death on the cross nothing more than screen play.  What certainly follows if non posse peccare is true is that Mordecai’s comment doesn’t apply.  There is no other place when it comes to the Messiah’s path.  Can you live with that?

Topical Index: from another place, māqōm ʾaḥēr, non posse peccare, destiny, Esther 4:13-14a