Jamin Bradley

Just as Eve “took” the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and “gave” it to “her husband,” so Sarah “took” her servant Hagar and “gave” her to “her husband” as a wife. The Bible wants you to know that this decision is the Garden of Eden all over again and that Abraham and Sarah have given into the temptation to get what God promised them in a different way than God intended. Had Adam and Eve waited, God would have taught them the knowledge of good and evil. Had Abraham and Sarah waited, they would have discovered that God was going to heal Sarah’s barrenness and let her have a miracle child at a very old age.

But instead, they took a shortcut. In ancient times, a servant could be turned into a surrogate mother, and her baby would then belong to her masters. This is exactly what Abraham and Sarah did when they partook in this sort of sex slavery. The more intimate biblical euphemism of “knowing” a person is not used to describe Hagar and Abraham’s relationship. Their sexual relations are all about birthing a child.

The Bible screams at us here to pay attention to the marginalized and respect them. Hagar’s very name is a word play on the Hebrew word for “stranger.” She is an Egyptian, likely brought into Abraham’s family when he deceived the pharaoh of Egypt. Before Egypt ruled it over Abraham’s descendants, Abraham and his descendants ruled it over Egypt—all the way up to Joseph, who basically turned all Egyptians into slaves of the state. Hagar is abused and mistreated and ultimately runs away from her masters for a time. They have not treated the stranger among them well.

But God finds Hagar in her brokenness and gives her a life-changing experience. Not only does she get to meet the famous Angel of the Lord, but she finds out that Abraham’s promise that he would have many descendants has now been extended to her. God did not set in place Hagar’s mistreatment, nor did he desire it—the sins against her belong with Abraham and Sarah. God’s interest is in meeting her in her pain and redeeming her.

We all have a tree we want to eat from, and we all take shortcuts to get there while oppressing the people around us. But Jesus shows us what it can be like if we just stay focused on God’s plan. God wanted to make Jesus king of the world, so Satan offered him shortcuts to get there. If Jesus had bowed before Satan, the little-g god of this world, Jesus could become a king without a cross. If Jesus had accepted Peter’s Satanic temptation to become king without dying, then Jesus could have started violently whipping swords around like Peter and calling down legions of angels instead of taking violence upon himself. It is no surprise that Jesus ended up in a garden, where the temptation to run from the cross became so strong that he sweat blood. And it’s no surprise that he was mistaken for a gardener when he successfully overcame temptation and followed God’s plan to the bitter end.

He’s the only one to not touch the tree. He’s the only one to not take shortcuts. He’s the only one who could return to the Garden of Eden. In time, he’ll call us back there. Right now, we must faithfully follow God’s plans as we lift up the strangers around us.