Chapter 4
Love
Our Need – Genesis 16:1–6; 21:8–14
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
“Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.”
The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son.
Early the next morning Abraham 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. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.
Though there are hopefully some experiences in life that we would not trade for anything, there are undoubtedly some we would give up or trade in a heartbeat. Excruciating experiences on body, mind, and soul from which recovery, if it ever fully happens, becomes its own long and painful process.
Hagar could share a lifetime of experiences like those. If her life could be summed up in a single word, perhaps that word is unloved.
Hagar was a slave—by definition, not the master of her own life, let alone her destiny. She was the slave of a couple named Abraham and Sarah, a wealthy, elderly, childless couple.
Through circumstances out of her control, Hagar joined Abraham in his bed in a plot by Sarah to finally receive the blessing of children that she herself could not achieve. She was not the wife for whom love ran so deeply that years seemed but days (see the story of Jacob and Rachel in Genesis 29:20). Sarah and Abraham saw Hagar as a tool. A body and a womb to be used for their own purposes. We don’t know how long it took for her to become pregnant by Abraham, but it’s plausible that Hagar had to endure days, weeks, or more of her body being used. It is not hard to understand why, when she became pregnant, she “despised” her mistress.
She did give birth to a son. A son who would be the heir to all that Abraham had. There is never a justification for abuse, but perhaps the knowledge that all that belonged to Abraham and Sarah would be her son’s (and by extension hers), would go a long way to soothe the pain she had to endure. Until Isaac.
shmael, Hagar’s son, would grow and was Abraham’s cherished son, although the feelings from Sarah were less than familial. Then, defying biological odds, Sarah became pregnant herself. Her growing womb would change everything for Hagar and Ishmael.
With the arrival of an heir born of both biological parents, Hagar and Ishmael became interlopers, thieves, a threat. In Sarah’s mind, threats are not people; threats are not sons; they are issues to be dealt with. And so they were.
Like an obsolete tool that has been replaced by something newer, Hagar and Ishmael were no longer useful, so they were discarded. Though Abraham struggled with the decision, he still sent the boy and his mother away. Hagar was unvalued, unwanted, and unloved.
We all want to be loved.
God’s Provision – Luke 7:36–48
When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Sympathy has its advantages over empathy. Both exhibit care for the life and situation of another person, but empathy requires that you have experienced it yourself, and it’s usually not something we really want to have gone through. It is easier, and experientially better for us to remain sympathetic rather than empathetic.
But there are times when even sympathy is difficult. Not because we do not care, but because the suffering of another is so far outside of our experience that even saying, “I’m sorry,” or “I hurt for you” doesn’t sound right because we have no legitimate or reliable frame of reference for what the person is going through. Call it privilege or a blessed life, or something else. There are some things that are difficult even to imagine someone else experiencing.
The woman whose tears fell in such abundance that they could cut through a day’s worth of the dust caked on Jesus’s feet falls into this category. It is difficult to relate to many aspects of her life. Why had she lived a life of sin? Was it her choice, or did she have no other recourse? We can say that she did not enjoy her life; it was not fulfilling, healthy, or satisfying. For many, she was likely a tool to be used and tossed aside—just like Hagar.
We are not given her name nor exactly her profession, although it’s not a difficult extrapolation. We only really know that she was broken and needed to get close to Jesus.
As a sinful woman, the last place she belonged, or was wanted in, was the house of a Pharisee. These two characters represented opposite ends of the spectrum, socially, and even in some respects spiritually—rule follower and rule breaker. From the outside, one was close to God and the other could not be further away.
She didn’t belong in Simon’s house. She knew it. Simon certainly knew it. Jesus knew it. Yet something strange happened: No one asked her to leave, forcibly or otherwise. Everyone let her stay and go about her business . . . weeping over Jesus’s feet and wiping them with her hair. There are few more humble actions than taking the filth and dirt of someone else onto yourself, and not just your clothes, but on your very person.
As everyone watched, each with their own thoughts about the two people in front of them, Jesus told a story. It was a story of two people, both in relationship to a third. The crux of the story is that one had reason to love the third more than the other. Of course, it was an analogy to the woman and to Simon the Pharisee in their relationship to Jesus. The woman had far more reason to love Jesus, and she demonstrated that love for Jesus through actions that Simon should have shown as an act of common courtesy.
Here’s the rub. None of this would have happened if Jesus had seen her as the others saw her. Jesus did not see the past or the present. He saw her, and he loved her because she was a daughter of Abraham and a child of God. Jesus allowed the untouchable to touch. He allowed the unclean to wash his feet. He acknowledged her approach, validated her presence, and valued her life simply by accepting her. He loved her as none of the others in her life had or would. He loved her not because of what she could give, but because she was worthy of love. And she, in turn, loved because she knew that she had much in her life that “disqualified” her from being loved.
We all want to be loved unconditionally. We know that we are going to make mistakes, and sometimes big mistakes. But we want to know that someone loves us and wants us close even though we will do things that make us unlovable. That’s the love Jesus offers. Jesus loves when no one else does. Jesus loves despite the reasons others find us unlovable. He wants us; he values us; he loves us.
The unconditional love of a savior. That’s the love Jesus brings.
We’ve all experienced the need for hope, peace, joy, and love. Our world and our lives have been broken by sin. The first coming of Jesus began fulfilling those longings. He is still offering hope, peace, joy, and love. When he comes again, we will no longer know the need for them. With Jesus in his kingdom, we will only know the beauty of Advent.
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