It is the closest that God’s people have ever come to actual extinction. It was the original attempt at the final solution. Driven from the security of their nation home, into a diaspora that spanned the farthest reaches of the Persian empire – from India to Ethiopia – they were at the complete mercy and goodwill of the peoples among whom they lived. Which they enjoyed…until they didn’t. The hatred and determination of just one man flowered into an irrevocable, empire-wide edict, which when carried out would have resulted in the extermination of almost every living Jew on the face of the earth. Never have God’s people hung by a thinner thread. But as we’ll be reminded this morning, the survival of God’s people has never depended upon God’s people. It is the sheer miracle of the mere existence of God’s people that is on full display in Esther 8:1-14, in a message entitled, “Saving the Unsavable”.