Hagar in the Desert: Where Have You Come From, Where Are You Going?

Introduction

This Wednesday evening, Pastor Maréchal opens the Bible to Genesis 16. A quiet chapter, almost tucked into the margins of the great story of Abraham, yet one that holds two of the most staggering questions in all of Scripture: "Where have you come from, and where are you going?"

It is the angel of the LORD who asks them. He asks them of a woman, alone, pregnant, fleeing into the desert, with no name of her own in the story and no visible future for her child. This woman is Hagar, the Egyptian servant of Sarai.

Maybe those two questions are waiting for you too, somewhere along the road. Maybe a desert you never chose has caught up with you, and you no longer know where you have come from or where you are going. The message of this sermon is that God sees, that he hears, and that he comes looking for you exactly where no one should ever find you.

Outline of the message

1. The context: Abram, the famine, Egypt and the servant brought home

Even before Genesis 16, it helps to remember Genesis 12. Abram is 75 years old, a man rich in gold and livestock, a man who does not yet know God, who lives in a world of idolatry. It is at that age that the LORD tells him: "Go from your country, your people and your father's household, to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you."

Abram sets out without knowing where he is going. He walks more than 900 kilometers, with plenty of time to meditate, to pray, to begin knowing this God who calls him. But no sooner has he arrived in Canaan than a famine breaks out. And here, he does not consult the LORD. He reasons it out for himself. He goes down to Egypt to stay there for a while.

Pastor Maréchal insists: "Logic is not the will of God. Reasoning is not the will of God." It was a personal choice, and God let him make it. In Egypt, Abram lies about Sarai, passing her off as his sister, and Pharaoh takes her into his harem. The LORD strikes Pharaoh with great plagues. Pharaoh sends Abram away with gifts, sheep, oxen, servants, maidservants, donkeys, camels. Among the maidservants brought back from Egypt was Hagar.

The gifts of the world are not always a blessing. Hagar will find herself in a situation she never would have chosen, and you too, perhaps, find yourself in a situation you did not choose.

2. The promise that is delayed and the human solution

God had promised Abram offspring. But the promise is delayed. Sarai is barren, Abram is getting old. So Sarai suggests a human solution: "Perhaps you could have a child through one of my servants." Today we might call it a surrogate mother. Abram listens to his wife's voice. Hagar is given to Abram. She becomes pregnant.

This union is not the will of God. It is not a story about two women, it is the story of a promise that people tried to fulfill on their own. And as soon as she is pregnant, Hagar despises her mistress. In that culture, barrenness was a disgrace: a woman could be sent away, cast out of the family. Sarai feels humiliated. The conflict breaks out.

Sarai says to Abram: "May the LORD judge between you and me." Abram answers: "Your servant is in your hands. Do with her whatever you think best." Sarai mistreats Hagar. And Hagar runs away.

3. The first desert: "Where have you come from, and where are you going?"

Genesis 16:7-8: "The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert, the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, 'Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?' 'I'm running away from my mistress Sarai,' she answered."

Look closely: Hagar can answer the first question. She knows where she has come from: she is running from her mistress. But to the second question, where are you going?, she says nothing. She does not know. She is walking with no direction.

Pastor Maréchal widens the lens: these are the great questions of life. Where do I come from? Where am I going? We all come from the garden of Eden, where our first parents were created, yet each of us was conceived outside the garden. So we search. We wonder: is there a God? Will I meet him? What comes after death? Is life worth living?

How many lives today are moving forward with no direction, in a desert of questions with no answers?

4. "Go back... submit yourself": the LORD's strange command

The angel of the LORD tells Hagar: "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." Humanly speaking, it makes no sense. She is pregnant, alone, mistreated. And God tells her: go back, submit yourself.

But God does not send her away empty handed. He adds a promise: "I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count. You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery."

Ishmael means "God hears." In the very name of her son, Hagar will carry for the rest of her life the memory that God heard her cry. Some of God's commands feel absurd, disturbing, unfair to you, but behind the command there is always a promise.

5. El Roi: "You are the God who sees me"

This is the turning point. Hagar recognizes God as the author of this revelation. She gives the LORD who spoke to her the name El Roi: "You are the God who sees me." She adds: "I have now seen the One who sees me" (Genesis 16:13).

That is why this well is called Beer Lahai Roi ("the well of the Living One who sees me"), located between Kadesh and Bered (Genesis 16:14). A well, a place, a name. So that no one would ever forget that in the middle of the desert, in the very place where a divine revelation would be least expected, God had been watching over her.

Maybe tonight you are telling yourself: "I am in the desert of life, with all my worries, amid broken and blended families, amid the human trafficking that harms women all over the world." God sees you. He knows your desert. He knows your affliction. He even knows the name of what is about to be born out of this desert.

6. The second desert: Beersheba, the empty water skin and the boy under the bush

Hagar goes back, submits herself, and gives birth to Ishmael. Abraham is 86 years old. Then Isaac is born, according to the promise. One day at a celebration, Sarah sees Ishmael mocking Isaac. The conflict flares up again. Abraham rises early in the morning: "He took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy."

This time, Hagar is no longer pregnant. She is carrying a teenager, perhaps 14, 15, 16 years old. She wanders in the desert of Beersheba. A skin of water, a piece of bread, a child. That is all.

When the water in the skin is gone, she puts the boy under a bush, goes and sits down nearby, about a bowshot away, and says: "I cannot watch the boy die." And as she sits there, she begins to sob (Genesis 21:14-16).

How many mothers today weep for their children. How many fathers weep for their children. In the desert of this life. Perhaps a child who has taken the path of violence. Perhaps a daughter whose choices tear you apart. Perhaps a husband, a wife, who brings only conflict. And you find yourself sitting there, at a distance, no longer able to look.

7. "God heard the boy crying"

Genesis 21:17: "God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, 'What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.'"

This time it is not the mother's voice, it is the voice of the child. We do not always know what is happening between a child and God when the mother believes it is over. God hears the voice of your son. God hears the voice of your daughter. God hears the voice of your husband. God hears the voice of your wife.

Pastor Maréchal tells a story: one day, behind the church, in an abandoned factory, he discovers a bed and Christian literature, the kind sold at his church's book table. He reaches out. One Sunday afternoon, a young boy arrives barefoot, in an unbelievable state. He says: "My parents are Christians, they go to the evangelical church." This boy had been right nearby, and God had heard his voice. He went back to his parents.

God hears the voice in the deepest despair. Is he not the one who repairs our breaches?

8. The well that God opens

Genesis 21:19: "Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink."

The well had been there all along. It had always been there. But Hagar could not see it. It was God who opened her eyes. Maybe your well is right there beside you, and you cannot see it yet.

Jesus said: "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them" (John 7:37-38). The river of God is always in the heart of God. Your eyes can be opened in the desert of your life. You can see the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And right where you are, the one who wants to forgive you wants to take you by the hand, lift you up, and set you back on your road.

Key takeaways

1. The gifts of the world are not always a blessing. Hagar came into Abram's household because Abram reasoned things out instead of consulting God. Reasoning is not the will of God.
2. There are two great questions in your life: where have you come from? Where are you going? You can often answer the first; it is usually the second that leaves you unsteady.
3. God sees, El Roi. Even in the desert place where you would least expect a revelation, he keeps watch over you.
4. God hears the voice of the child. Do not lose hope for your son, your daughter, your spouse. Their voice rises to heaven, even when you can no longer hear it.
5. The well is already there. God opens the eyes; the river of living water flows in Jesus Christ.

Personal application

1. In which recent decision did you reason things out instead of consulting God? What came out of that reasoning, and what do you want to hand back to the Lord?
2. If the angel asked you tonight, "Where are you going?", what would your honest answer be? And if you do not have one, are you ready to ask God for direction?
3. What desert are you walking through today (health, family, work, faith) where you feel that God does not see you?
4. Is there a child, a loved one, a spouse whom you have stopped believing can be reached? Are you ready to entrust their voice to the God who hears them?
5. What wells might God have already placed beside you, that your eyes cannot see yet?

Verses cited

• Genesis 12 · Abram's call and his journey down to Egypt
• Genesis 16 · Hagar in the first desert, El Roi, Beer Lahai Roi
• Genesis 21:14-21 · Hagar and Ishmael in the desert of Beersheba
• John 7:37-38 · "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me"

FAQ

Why does God ask Hagar to go back and be mistreated?

The command is hard to receive, but it is not given without something in return: God attaches a promise to it (countless descendants, a son named Ishmael, "God hears"). Going back and submitting is, for Hagar, the very place where the promise can take flesh. God does not endorse Sarai's mistreatment; he places Hagar under his own protection, as El Roi, in the very place where she believed herself invisible.

Who is El Roi, the name Hagar gives to God?

El Roi means "the God who sees." This is one of the very first times in the Bible that a human being gives a name to God, and it is a woman, a foreigner, a servant, pregnant, on the run who does it. The well of Beer Lahai Roi, "the well of the Living One who sees me," will forever carry the trace of that encounter.

What can you say to someone going through their own Beersheba desert today?

Three things. First: God sees you where you are, even when no one else can find you. Second: the voice of your child, of your spouse, and your own voice, rise all the way to heaven. Third: the well is already there, it is Jesus Christ, the river of living water. Ask God to open your eyes, and drink.