“Then God opened her eyes to see a well with water, and Hagar went, filled the canteen, and gave some to the young man” (Genesis 21:19).
It’s a very bad turn of events. Hagar, who as far as we can tell is a faithful, trusted, and long-time servant of Sarah, was happy. She had a place in the household. The child she bore would be Abraham’s heir. She was secure. Life was good.
There’s a Rabbinical story about Ishmael and Isaac. We’re told that Sarah saw the two of them playing together, which is what caused her to suggest to Abraham that Hagar and her child to be sent away. In that story, the game Ishmael was playing was one where he was shooting arrows at things Isaac had set upon his head. The story goes that Sarah, upon seeing this, realized what the older boy was up to.
That tale is rather unfair to Ishmael. We’re not given any indication that he was resentful or jealous of Isaac. We’re not told if he had any sense at all of the inheritance he had once been due that now belonged to his little half-brother. My thought is that their playing was just what it sounds like, and Sarah, in that moment, didn’t want this young man around anymore.
So Sarah goes to Abraham and tells him that Hagar and Ishmael had to go. Today. Or he could sleep on the couch. As you would expect, this man who once led a small army to rescue his nephew Lot, did exactly as he was told.
Out of water and on their own in the wilderness, Hagar walks away from her son; because, as we’re told, she can’t watch him die. For me, the scene is in the depths of the forest. Hagar continues down the trail while her son sleeps, going until she is out of earshot before falling down and weeping. Crying for her son, for the life they’ve lost, and the hope that’s disappeared like the morning mist.
Upon waking and finding himself alone, Ishmael cries out. His voice echoes off the trees reverberating in anger and fear. Raising a cry loud enough that God hears, sees, and speaks directly to Hagar. She hears those words that echo again and again in the stories of Scripture, don’t be afraid.
Then we’re told that God opened her eyes. There, close enough to have tripped over, is a well.
How’d she miss that, it’s tempting to ask. Well, tempting if you’ve never had your world fall apart. Otherwise, if you’re like me, you know exactly how she came that way without seeing the well.
Maybe it was because her vision was blurred by the tears in her eyes. Or it was the darkness that falls with depression, turning the whole world black. There’s a blindness that comes when our hearts are broken and our dreams come crashing down.
The world about us can be rather dark. The light we celebrated coming just a couple of weeks ago, the light this past week we carried out into the world already seems dimmed. Not extinguished, but struggling. Civilians killed by their government. Sabers of war flashed in pursuit of greed. Complacency and ineptitude by those who have been elected to act.
But that doesn’t mean that a reason for hope, water that will refresh and sustain us isn’t around the next tree or in the shadows ahead.
Several chapters before this event, when she was newly with child, Hagar was alone in perhaps this same wilderness having run away from the cruelty of Sarah. An angel had come to her in that moment, bringing her news of hope regarding her son. And in response Hagar declared God to be God-Who-Sees. The same God that, in today’s passage, opens her eyes so she can see.
God sees. The same eye that knows the fall of every sparrow sees us, sees all that is happening around us. The one who saw Hagar and her son in the wilds sees the immigrants being grabbed off the street, sees the violence happening against the innocent, sees the rich enriching themselves as others grow poorer.
And, in time, the same One can open our eyes, showing us that hope is near.
Holy One, open our eyes to hope and the light that shines in darkness.