Purim is the celebration of God's preservation of Israel through a woman.
Israel was in captivity by the Medo-Persians. The Persian king's right hand man, Haman, wanted to destroy all the Jews in the kingdom. He almost succeded.
But God raised up an Israelitess, a woman, to be in the right place at the right time.
One of the miracles of the story is that Israel should truly have been destroyed! Had there not been a voice to cry out. Only through the hand of God was Israel preserved.
Today we celebrate this feast by traditionally eating hamantaschen, a triangular shaped pastry resembling a hat and so-called after the idea of Haman's hat. We rejoice at this time seeing God's mighty deliverance of His people.
God is not mentioned thruoughout the book of Esther, yet one cannot read the story without seeing the hand of God in mighty action.
If Mordecai had not listened to God's direction, he would not have been in a place to influence his neice to apply to be Queen.
If Mordecai had not listened to the voice of God's direction, he would not have had the courage to uncover the plot to kill the king and therefore would not have been in place to guide his neice to ask the king.
Had Israel not been delivered there would have been
NO Jesus - Yeshua.
We also recognize that it is at this time that we are encouraged to give gifts to one another and portions of food to the needy. This is the biblical time of gift giving.