Tomorrow is the Jewish festival of Purim, in which we celebrate our deliverance from the hands of the evil Haman, who wanted to destroy all Jews because of one particular Jew who had seriously irritated him. Haman had a cunning plan which seemed failsafe, but what do you know, it turned out in the end that God had other plans and thanks to God we are alive to tell the story and to celebrate.
But God is not mentioned in the book of Esther (the book in the Bible that tells this story) - in this case, as so very often happens, God used a human being to bring about his plans. And when we look at people in the Bible who found themselves used by God, what do we see? What are the requirements? Do we have to be particularly strong? especially intelligent? Actually it seems quite often to be the opposite - God uses people who seem weak and useless by human terms, because that way we can see that it's God at work.
And in this case he chose a beauty queen. A girl whose only known attribute is that she won a beauty contest. Hardly the sort of person we would expect to act as a major hero!
She wasn't hero material really. Her first reaction when Mordechai suggests that she must go to the King is along the lines of: you've got to be joking! you think I've got a death wish?
She has good reason to be scared. The rule is that if you go to see the King uninvited, you can be put to death. What Mordechai is asking her to do is a huge risk. But then Mordechai points out to her that actually, as she is Jewish, if Haman's plot succeeds she will die anyway. "And who knows," he says, "but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" In other words, if you've thought of yourself as just a pretty girl, think again: God may have a special calling for you, he may have brought you to this place for a purpose.
And Esther, our pretty young girl who was no hero material in human terms, rose to the challenge. She accepted her calling, saying she would go to the King "and if I prerish, I perish."
Tomorrow in the church calendar is the day commemorating another person who accepted his calling and risked death to save people - in this case the whole world and not only the Jews, though he did come first of all "for the lost sheep of Israel". In his case death was not just a risk but part of the job description - he came to be "the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world".
Two unlikely Jewish heroes, each accepting the purpose for which they were put in that time and place, risking everything to save others. The challenge that I see here for us is this: will we be obedient when God calls us to take risks for him? Will we be sensitive to his calling and obedient when we hear it? Because who knows but that we have been put here for such a time as this?
Two unlikely Jewish heroes, each accepting the purpose for which they were put in that time and place, risking everything to save others. 
