Est. 6: Mordecai's Honor

Esther 6:11 "So Haman got the robe and the horse. He robed Mordecai, and led him on horseback through the city streets, proclaiming before him, 'This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor!'"

So King Xerxes is laying there in bed and he can't sleep. Just as we go flip on the TV or the radio or something, he needed some sort of a distraction, so he has his chronicles read to him...the things that happened during his reign. I usually listen to a radio to fall asleep, because I can't stand total silence. Maybe this is something I have in common with a king! Pretty sweet.

So anyway, the reader gets to the part where Mordecai narcs on the two guys who were conspiring against Xerxes. Suddenly it strikes him. I imagine he sits straight up in his enormous bed and wonders aloud, "What...how have we recognized Mordecai for this?" Saving the life was a pretty big deal. "Nothing has been done for Mordecai." Well, now they have to figure out some stuff to do for Mordecai. Someone important would have to give him some advice. He notices Haman in the court. Xerxes probably thinks Haman can give him some good advice on how to honor someone.

Haman, who is there ironically to discuss Mordecai's death, had just had the gallows erected for that purpose. Amazing.

Xerxes' conversation with Haman from this point on reminds me of an episode of "I Love Lucy." One character is talking about something, while the second character thinks that first character is talking about something else. Xerxes questions Haman, asking, "What's to be done with someone who the king delights to honor?" Haman, flattered and presuming it is he, not Mordecai, the king delights to honor, wracks his brain trying to think of the most amazing way ever for the king to honor someone. One by one, Haman throws out honor after honor, including dressing the honoree in royal robes, parading him around town, and proclaiming aloud, "See how the king honors those who he delights in."

Can you imagine the deflation and the feeling of utter worthlessness Haman must have felt when the king instructed him to go do this with Mordecai the Jew? The same Mordecai who aggravated him for no real good reason constantly, just a refusal to honor him? The same Mordecai who Haman spent all evening building gallows for?

So there was Haman, parading Mordecai all over town, honoring him with a king's honor instead of hanging him from the gallows. 

Haman presumed too much. Here God preserved Mordecai. Mordecai who had received little or no honor at the time he had saved the king, patiently waited until God timed it to reward him. And in a really ironic, painful-to-the-other-guy way. Gloryhounds will get their comeuppance. And those who wait will receive their reward.

And Haman barely has time to go cry to his wife and friends before the eunuchs come and haul him off to Esther's banquet. It had to be piling on for Haman at this point, as his friends told him there was no standing up to jews. They have their special God in charge of them. He was as good as dead.