Esther 1-5: For Such a Time as This

The Israelites have lost their position.  They are strangers in a strange land, subject to the laws and customs of that land.  How do they preserve their identity without risking their lives.  Keeping a low profile is not always the best way although it may be what comes to mind first.  And so it is with Esther.  She's a natural beauty, and that beauty allows her to hide her identity from the King Xerxes.  But it could not have been just her beauty that made her attractive.  There must have been something else, because she won the favor of everyone who saw her.  Even the king's eunuch, Hegai, saw something special in Esther and took her under his wing. 

Meanwhile, a lot of plotting and scheming is going on.  First Esther's uncle, Mordecai, uncovers a conspiracy to assassinate Xerxes.  God has placed Esther in a position where she can report this and this plotters are taken care of.  Then Haman starts putting into action his own plot to eliminate all of the Jews and the edict goes out that on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, all the Jews are to be killed and their goods plundered. 

What can be done, the Jews are helpless.  Mordecai tears his clothes and puts on sackcloth and ashes, but the deed is done. In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes. - Esther 4:3 NIV

There is nothing that any of the men of Israel can do to prevent what is about to happen.  The only Jewish person in any position of influence is Esther.  She is in that position because of her beauty.  Is that enough?
When Esther sends word to Mordecai that she has to have permission to enter the kings presence or she will be killed,  he sent back this answer: "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape.  For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"  - Esther 4:13-14 NIV

Perhaps it wasn't her beauty at all that caused her to be taken into the kings palace.  Perhaps she was placed there for just such as time as this.