A homily on Esther 6
Preacher: Lionel Windsor
Church: St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney
Date: 17 September 2026, 5:15 pm (evensong)
Bible text: based on NIV 2011
“The man the king delights to honour”…
“The man the king delights to honour.” This is the ongoing refrain of our Old Testament reading today, from the book of Esther: the account of the Persian court of King Xerxes.
We have heard about two men. The first is Haman, a powerful, assured man: high-flying and upwardly mobile. He expects to be the man the king delights to honour. So when the king asks, “What should be done for the man the king delights to honour?”, Haman naturally assumes that the king is speaking about him. But Haman’s proud expectations are turned upside down.
The second man is Mordecai, a Jewish man whom Haman regards as a nobody: lowly and despised. Mordecai is Haman’s enemy, and Haman plans to impale him on a pole—literally, to hang him on a device made of wood, bringing public shame upon him for everyone to see and jeer.
And yet, the man the king delights to honour turns out not to be Haman, but Mordecai: the despised man who was destined for public shaming on a wooden post. Haman is shamed, grieved and brought low. But Mordecai the Jew, once destined for a shameful death, is paraded and honoured before all.
God is never mentioned in this reading, but God is clearly behind all these reversals. Mordecai the Jew is, in fact, the man God delights to honour, while the high and mighty Haman is brought low. Haman’s advisers and his wife Zeresh warn him that Mordecai is God’s man, one of God’s people, the Jews, and that Haman cannot stand against him.
Jesus came into our world
Centuries later, from the same Jewish people to whom Mordecai belonged, Jesus came into our world. The powerful and mighty of the land despised and rejected him. And Jesus did indeed suffer a publicly shameful death: crucified on a wooden cross, hung up for all to see.
And yet Jesus was, more than anyone, the man the King delights to honour. Not the king of Persia, but the Lord of the universe, the King of kings, delights to honour Jesus. This man was despised and rejected by men. He bore our sins in his body on the tree. He is our Saviour and our Lord.
God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day. Jesus is the one who will return in glory, when every eye will see him and every tongue confess that this humble and crucified Jesus is Lord. This is what is done for the man the King delights to honour!
Who amongst us is the one the King delights to honour?
One day, Jesus attended a banquet at a Pharisee’s house. He noticed people choosing places of honour for themselves at the feast. In Luke 14:10–11, Jesus said:
10 … when you are invited [to a wedding feast], take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, “Friend, move up to a better place.” Then you will be honoured in the presence of all the other guests. 11 For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
This is the one God our King delights to honour: the one who humbles himself.
Not long after that feast, Jesus told a parable with the same point. In Luke 18:10–14, he said:
10 Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”
13 But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
14 I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
What does it mean to humble ourselves? It means not being proud and boasting in our own goodness. It means not expecting God to be impressed by our status or power, or parading our good works before him as proof that God will honour us. Instead, it means coming humbly before God and admitting our unworthiness.
So this is what we must do. We must humble ourselves before our Lord and receive the forgiveness and salvation Jesus won for us by his shameful death on the cross, dying in our place.
We must also live our lives not proudly expecting God to honour us simply because we are great or good or powerful. Instead, like Mordecai, we are to serve and live humbly, yet expectantly, trusting God to lift us up.
Because the man the King delights to honour is Jesus. And as we humbly come to Jesus for forgiveness, God delights to lift us up too. What will be done for the one the King delights to honour? Eternal life, and the glory we will share with his Son.