Esther 4:2

Clothed with sackcloth.

The transfigured sackcloth

The sign of affliction was thus excluded from the Persian court that royalty might not be discomposed. This disposition to place an interdict on disagreeable and painful things still survives. Men of all ranks and conditions hide from themselves the dark facts of life. Revelation, however, lends no sanction to this habit. We wish to show the entire reasonableness of revelation in its frank recognition of the dark facts of existence.

I. we consider first the recognition by revelation of sin. Sackcloth is the outward and visible sign of sin, guilt, and misery. What is popularly called sin, certain philosophers call error, accident, inexperience, imperfection, disharmony, but they will not allow the presence in the human heart of a malign force which asserts itself against God and against the order of His universe. Intellectual masters like Emerson and Renan ignore conscience; they refuse to acknowledge the selfishness, baseness, and cruelty of society. Men generally are willing to dupe themselves touching the fact and power of sin. We do not unshrinkingly acquaint ourselves with the malady of the spirit as we should with any malady hinting itself in the flesh. The sackcloth must not mar our shallow happiness. In the vision of beautiful things we forget the troubles of conscience as the first sinners hid themselves amid the leaves and flowers of paradise; in fashion and splendour we forget our guilty sorrow, as mediaeval mourners sometimes concealed the cerements with raiment of purple and gold; in the noises of the world we become oblivious of the interior discords, as soldiers forget their wounds amid the stir and trumpets of the battle. Nevertheless sin thrusts itself upon our attention. The creeds of all nations declare the fact that men everywhere feel the bitter working and intolerable burden of conscience. The sense of sin has persisted through changing generations. The sackcloth is ours, and it eats our spirits like fire. More than any other teacher, Christ emphasised the actuality and awfulness of sin; more than any other He has intensified the world’s consciousness of sin. He never sought to relieve us of the sackcloth by asserting our comparative innocence; He never attempted to work into that melancholy robe one thread of colour, to relieve it with one solitary spangle of rhetoric. He laid bare its principle and essence. The South Sea Islanders have a singular tradition to account for the existence of the dew. The legend states that in the beginning the earth touched the sky, that being the golden age when all was beautiful and glad; then some dreadful tragedy occurred, the primal unity was broken up, the earth and sky were torn asunder as we see them now, and the dew-drops of the morning are the tears that nature sheds over the sad divorce. This wild fable is a metaphor of the truth, the beginning of all evil lies in the alienation of the spirit of man from God, in the divorce of earth from heaven; here is the final reason why the face of humanity is wet with tears. Instead of shutting out the signs of woe, Christ arrayed Himself in the sackcloth, becoming sin for us who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. We have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins; He establishes us in a true relation to the holy God; He restores in us the image of God; He fills us with the peace of God. Not in the spirit of barren cynicism does Christ lay bare the ghastly wound of our nature, but as a noble physician who can purge the mortal virus that destroys` us. We go to Him in sackcloth, but we leave His presence in purity’s robe of snow, in the heavenly blue of the holiness of truth.

II. We consider the recognition by revelation of sorrow. Sackcloth is the raiment of sorrow, and as such it was interdicted by the Persian monarch. We still follow the same insane course, minimising, denying suffering. Society sometimes attempts this. Literature sometimes follows the same cue. Goethe made it one of the rules of his life to avoid everything that could suggest painful ideas. Art has yielded to the same temptation. Most of us are inclined to the sorry trick of gliding over painful things. When the physician prescribed blisters to Marie Bashkirtseff to check her consumptive tendency, the vain, cynical girl wrote: “I will put on as many blisters as they like. I shall be able to hide the mark by bodices trimmed with flowers and lace and tulle, and a thousand other things that are worn, without being required; it may even look pretty. Ah! I am comforted.” The real secret of the power of many of the fashions and diversions of the world is found in the fact that they hide disagreeable things, and render men oblivious for awhile of the mystery and weight of an unintelligible world. There is no screen to shut off permanently the spectacle of suffering. When Marie Antoinette passed to her bridal in Paris, the halt, the lame, and the blind were sedulously kept out of her way, lest their appearance should mar the joyousness of her reception; but ere long the poor queen had a very close view of misery’s children, and she drank to the dregs the cup of life’s bitterness. Reason as we may, suffering will find us out, and pierce us to the heart. We will not have the philosophy that ignores suffering; witness the popularity of Schopenhaur. We resent the art that ignores sorrow. The most popular picture in the world to-day is the “Angelus” of Millet. We will not have the literature that ignores suffering. Classic religions had little or nothing to do with the sorrows of the million; the gods reigned on Mount Olympus, taking little note of the grief of mortals. Christianity boldly recognises the sad element in human nature. Christ makes clear to us the origin of suffering. He shows that its genesis is in the error of the human will; but if suffering originate in the error of the human will, it ceases at once if the erring will be brought into correspondence with the primitive order of the universe. Christ has power to establish this harmony. Dealing with sin, He dries up the stream of sorrow at its fountain. By the authority of that word that speaks the forgiveness of our sin, He wipes away all tears from the face of such as obey Him. Christ gives us the noblest example of suffering. So far from shutting His gate on the sackcloth, once more He adopted it, and showed how it might become a robe of glory. Poison is said to be extracted from the rattlesnake for medicinal purposes; but infinitely more wonderful is the fact that the suffering which comes out of sin counterworks sin, and brings to pass the transfiguration of the sufferer. It is a clumsy mistake to call Christianity a religion of sorrow--it is a religion for sorrow.

III. We consider the recognition by revelation of death. We have, again, adroit ways of shutting the gate upon that sackcloth which is the sign of death. Some would have us believe that through the scientific and philosophic developments of later centuries the sombre way of viewing death has become obsolete. The fact, however, still remains, that death is the crowning evil, the absolute bankruptcy, the final defeat, the endless exile. If we are foolish enough to shut the gate on the thought of death, by no stratagem can we shut the gate upon death itself. Christ displays the fact, the power, the terror of death without reserve or softening. He shows that death is unnatural, that it is the fruit of disobedience, and by giving us purity and peace He gives us eternal life. He demonstrates immortality by raising us from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. Here is the supreme proof of immortality: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father.” The moral works are the greater works. If Christ has raised us from the death of sin, why should we think it a thing incredible that God should raise the dead? If He has wrought the greater, He will not fail with the less. Christ bringing life and immortality to light has brought about the great change in the point of view from which we regard death, the point of view which is full of consolation and hope. Once more, by boldly adopting the sackcloth Christ has changed it into a robe of light. We cannot escape the evils of life. Wearing wreaths of roses, our heads will still ache. “The king sighs as often as the peasant”; this proverb anticipates the fact that those who participate in the richest civilisation that will ever flower will sigh as men sigh now. Esther “sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, and to take his sackcloth from him, but he received it not.” In vain men offer us robes of beauty, chiding us for wearing the robes of night; we must give place to all the sad thoughts of our mortality until we find a salvation that goes to the root of our suffering, that dries up the fount of our tears. Christianity gives such large recognition to the pathetic element of life, because it divines the secret of our mighty misfortune, and brings with it the sovereign antidote. The critics declare Rubens had an absolute delight in representing pain, and they refer us to his picture of the “Brazen Serpent.” The writhing, gasping crowd is everything, and the supreme instrument of cure, the brazen serpent itself, is small and obscure, no conspicuous feature whatever of the picture. Revelation brings out broadly and impressively the darkness of the world, the malady of life, the terror of death, only that it may evermore make conspicuous the uplifted Cross, which, once seen, is death to every vice, a consolation in every sorrow, a victory over every fear. (W. L. Watkinson.)

Sorrow may be transfigured

Science tells how the bird-music has arisen out of the bird’s cry of distress in the morning of time; how originally the music of field and forest was nothing more than an exclamation caused by the bird’s bodily pain and fear, and how through the ages the primal note of anguish has been evolved and differentiated until it has risen into the ecstasy of the lark, melted into the silver note of the dove, swelled into the rapture of the nightingale, unfolded into the vast and varied music of the sky and the summer. So Christ shows that out of the personal sorrow which now rends the believer’s heart, he shall arise in moral and infinite perfection; that out of the cry of anguish wrung from us by the present distress shall spring the supreme music of the future. (W. L. Watkinson.)

Esther 4:2

For none might enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth.

Death must be encountered

Since the last enemy must be encountered by the greatest as well as the least of our race, is it not far better to be prepared for meeting him, than to banish him from our thoughts? (G. Lawson.)

Death a visitor that cannot be stopped at the gate

And is Death included in this prohibition? Have you given orders to your porters and guards to stop this visitor at the gate, and to say to him, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further”? Or will they be able to persuade him, and his train of ghastly attendants, gout, fever, consumption, and other diseases, to lay aside their sable dress, together with their darts and spears and scorpions? (T. McCrie.)

We cannot keep trouble from our hearts by banishing the signs of mourning from our dwellings

It is the height of folly, therefore, for us to try to surround ourselves with the appearance of security, and make believe that no change can come upon us. That is to do like the ostrich, which buries its head in the sand, and thinks itself safe from its pursuers because it can no longer see them. Trouble, sorrow, trial, death are inevitable, and the wise course is to prepare to meet them. We cannot shut our homes against these things; but we can open them to Christ, and when He enters He says, “My grace is sufficient for thee; My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)