Hadassah

Stanza 1: Hadassah

Long ago, there lived a girl.
Her beauty, like the finest pearl
Drew every eye throughout the land—
Men oft dreamed to gain her hand.
Her beauty like a tool she used;
Not afraid to subject, abuse, confuse—
So long as she wore the wreath of fame
And that Susa would sing her name.
“This glory is my own,” she thought,
“And could not with rare jewels be bought.”
And so, the city fawned and cowered
At her look of regal power.
She thought her state the strongest tower…
But it was, in fact, a fragile flower.

Hadassah’s gift was not her own—
Not for the vice of her fleshly desire,
Not a treat to be bought for hire.
Yes, her Jewish heritage she’d spurned,
Yes, for all a-godly she’d yearned,
Yet not beyond God’s power to turn
And create out of her an urn
Fit for his throne. [OR: ‘For honorable use’]
So watch, as God works both His good and hers,
Observe how He remakes the one who has erred
Into a trophy who ensures
That His covenant to His people forever endures.

Stanza 2: To the King

Here, in the midst of all her bliss,
Hadassah’s life took an unforeseen twist.
Vashti, in the face of command, shakes a fist.
And as such a decision inevitably brings,
She bore the wrath of an egotistical king.
This vacancy left an opening
That forced Xerxes to decide
Who was now worthy to stand by his side.
To the city he announced this desire:
(though merely a trick to slake Passion’s fire)
“Bring the fairest women! Let no family conspire
To withhold from me
Any with whom I might choose to be.
With each, for one night I’ll lay.
Whoever pleases me most will stay
And become Queen over all my estate.
This is the decree of Xerxes the Great.”
So here she is, with pagan women trodding,
Though not with joyless gate of one plodding
Without other recourse.

No, this was her course—
All for which she dreamed would now come to pass!
The nation’s glory would be hers at long last!
Looking to gain the world she forfeits her soul,
For God won’t be bought with a sacrifice not whole
And complete.
One which falls down at His feet
Enraptured—in unparalleled ecstasy.
Rebelliously, Hadassah tramps to the bed of a false majesty.
With her pleasures the contest she easily wins
And in doing so grossly sins
And breaks God’s decree:
“Worship none but Me.”
She deserves condemnation—
Hell—not salvation.
Yet in love God brings proud queens to their knees
And makes of wretches lovers of authentic Glory.
Here, when all seems good and bright,
When life seems to radiate with light,
In kindness God sends the darkest of nights
By showering fear through a terrible plight.

Stanza 3: Haman

Haman, a political prodigy,
Sits next to the king…and a model of carnality.
No friendship too dear
That he wouldn’t, in a flash, run a spear
Through the side
Of any who assaulted his pride.
Only one passion matched his love for self—
Not his family, his position, or his pelf—
But a deep, insane, suffused
Hatred for the Jews.
Agag, his esteemed ancestor,
Had been declared by God a transgressor
And thus worthy of death.
So, in obedience, Samuel took his breath
With violent hacks from a sword.

Now, Haman despised the Lord
And resolved that he would not fail
To slay His people—all those from Israel.
With his standing before the king secured,
He approached the throne with a demure,
Seemingly noble plea
To annihilate ‘a group’ plotting mutiny.
So, with the angry stroke of a pen
Xerxes decreed that ten thousand men
Be set against this [alleged] insurrection
And against any who proffered the enemies protection.

Stanza 4: Repentance and Salvation

Hadassah’s imaginations now lay in dust shattered;
All her hopes mercilessly scattered
By the winds of adversity.
“Why now…why this calamity?”
In torn robe and ash she falls in misery;
Frightfully alone; she weeps bitterly.
But, then, slowly, she begins to remember—
And then stokes the faint embers
Of a long forgotten truth
Till it blazed within as an eternal proof
Of covenant love and saving grace
That only through God’s power takes place.

The truth was this…

Long ago there came from Gath
A man of Philistia who poured wrath
On all the land of Zion.
His strength was like that of a lion,
And the seething hate he conveyed
Before the eyes of all betrayed
His real master—the Dweller of Hell.
His voice cast on Israel a spell
From which it seemed she might never wake.
His confidence made the Israelites quake
And long for the sort of bravery
It would take to set God’s people free.

“Yahweh?” Again he scoffed, “Where is he?”
“Does he too, like you, fear me?
You are dogs, and He the flea!
For he seems not to hear your pleas
For deliverance and mercy!”
“Silence!” The crowd parts…there, a boy.
“I’m not amused by your ploys!”
Goliath foamed in white-hot craze.
“No tricks.” said David. “This is the stage
On which God will display his utter rage
And disdain for clods of dirt
Who impiously spurt
Their own praise
All of their pointless days.
This day He will lay you low…
To your Master you soon will go.”
In minutes, David had done as he said,
And the giant fell before him dead.
This is the truth:
Victory came not by a young boy’s couth
Or by arm or stone or sling…
But by the One who is everlasting.
What he has decreed always comes to pass.
He never reneges with the ‘alas!’
Of one who might have done better.
Nor is His will fettered
By the pleasures of another being.
He, alone, sits Sovereign over everything.

“Oh God where are you…” Hadassah starts.
“For so long now I’ve lived apart
From your embrace.
But please…don’t now hide from me your face.
I’ve sinned much and so deserve
From you a condemning word.
Don’t pay may what I’ve earned.
Oh Lord, now I’ve learned
That all but you is dust,
And that the height of folly is to trust
In things now seen.
Whether I live or die, hold this scene
Of hopelessness before my eyes,
That I might, like David, learn to prize
Alone Your worth and pleasure
Above all earthly treasures.

Now, could it be that behind this evil is Your hand?
That all these things work according to Your plan?”

[God replied:]

Where am I, you wonder?
I AM in the lighting and thunder
I AM in the drought and the rain,
I AM in the peace and the pain,
I AM on the land and in the seas,
I, Hadassah, do all that I please.
I spin around the sun the earth,
I aid in every creature’s birth,
I AM the God of joy and mirth,
I AM the King of want and dearth.
But where were you when the heavens were made?
Where were you when earth’s foundations were laid?
Where were you when I made the darkness and light?
Where were you when I determined what’s wrong and what’s right?
Where were you when I fashioned the flowers and trees?
Where were you when I created the earth’s gentle breeze?
Would you now give me counsel on how I should rule?
Am I the One who has played the fool?
Who gave to Xerxes his small throne?
And do you consider Haman’s reason his own?
Was it not I who gave him to think?
Was it not I who made the parchment, pen, the ink
Used to sign and now force you to the brink
(With your people) of becoming extinct?
I AM the One whom you forsook!
I AM the One from whom you took
Glory that was not meant for you.
I AM the One who has kindly brooded
Over you like a mother hen…
Yet you, in spite, refused my hand
And your own good sought
As if real ‘good’ could be wrought
Or found apart from Me.
Hadassah, I’ve made you to be
Mine! You are not your own
But owned by the One who sits on the Throne.
I, before your life, wrote your story.
Hadassah, I do all things for my own glory.
These words she had prayed to hear.
It was the kind of word which exploded fear
And turned all of her tears
Into an eternal hope.
No longer left to blindly grope
Alone for truth. God was It.
Yet His power was not a bridle and bit
Of oft feared oppression.
Oh no—He was the bringer of life and salvation.
“Gladly, I vow to submit,
And now give every bit
Of remaining strength to praise
The Sovereign One whose ways
And wonders are a mystery.
God give me now David’s bravery
That I might fight for your people’s liberty.”

Stanza 5: Conclusion

We know well this stories’ end.
Hadassah, without a summons enters in
To the king and wins
The neck of Haman and Jewish security.
But don’t be enamored by the victory.
We would be fools and remiss
If we were to blindly miss
The crucial point of this story,
Which is: ‘to God be the glory.’
The glory is his in death and in life
The glory is his when we are rife
With joy or drowned in strife.
It’s his when Pol Pot for sport kills
With a wide smile that chills
One to the bone.
It’s his when we pick up the phone
And hear that our boy was thrown
From a car and lies dead on the street.
It’s his when cancer pulls the white sheet
Of death over fathers and mothers,
And when fights and wars take our brothers.
Is his name only blessed when we are at rest?
Is it only when smiling that his ways are best?
God now sweetly asks, “will you trust and confess
My worth when enduring in every season?
You ask ‘what behind all things is the reason?’
MY GLORY!”