The God Who Sees Me

In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

May the blessing of the Father who calls us, and His Only Begotten Son who saves us, and the Holy Spirit who sanctifies and transforms us be with us all, that we may hear His word and bear fruit—thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Amen.

Introduction

My dear beloved,

There is a question many of us have heard more times than we can count.

“Where are you from?”

Sometimes it is asked with warmth. Sometimes with curiosity. And sometimes, if we are honest, it leaves us feeling that we will always be the stranger in the room.

Many of us came here from somewhere else. We started over: new country, new language, new jobs. We work hard, we come to church, we say “Thank God, everything is fine.”

But most of us are carrying something we don’t talk about. Worry about family back home. Stress at work. Problems in the house. Things we keep to ourselves.

And sometimes we wonder: does anyone really see what I’m going through?

Today the Word of God answers that question with a name. Not a name given to God by a prophet or a priest, but by a servant woman — a foreigner, an Egyptian, alone in the desert. She called Him the God who sees me.

1. The God Who Sees the Unseen

In our Genesis Journey we have walked with Abram through chapters fifteen to seventeen — the promise, the covenant, the long waiting. But tucked inside chapter sixteen is a woman the story could easily forget.

Her name is Hagar — in Arabic, هاجر, Hājar. Our Coptic commentators tell us her name carries the meaning “stranger.” She is Sarai’s servant. She is an Egyptian. And when life in Abram’s house becomes harsh, she runs.

Imagine the scene. A desert road leading back toward Egypt. A young woman, pregnant, alone. No one is coming after her. No one is looking for her.

And then, by a spring of water in the wilderness, the Angel of the Lord finds her. Notice — He finds her. She was not searching for God. God was searching for her. And He calls her by name: “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?” (Genesis 16:8).

Where are you from? The same question — but this time it is not cold. It is the question of a Father who already knows the answer, and wants to hear her speak.

And Hagar, the stranger, gives God a name: “You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, ‘Have I also here seen Him who sees me?’” (Genesis 16:13). In Hebrew, El Roi. Saint Bede says Hagar “recognized that she had seen him showing mercy and that he was living, that is, that he was truly God.”

Now come with me to today’s Gospel. I want to set these two stories side by side. The Fathers do not join them for us; but when we read Genesis and the Gospel together in the light of Christ, they speak to each other.

A man is brought to Christ. Blind. Mute. Possessed. He cannot see the way to Jesus. He cannot call out to Jesus. He cannot even ask for help. The Gospel says simply: “Then one was brought to Him” (Matthew 12:22). Someone had to carry him there.

Saint John Chrysostom looks at this man and cries out: “O wickedness of the evil spirit! he had barred up both entrances, whereby that person should have believed, as well sight as hearing; nevertheless, both did Christ open.”

Hagar could not find her way home. This man could not find his way at all. And the same God saw them both. The One who saw Hagar by the spring now stands before this man with a human face — the Word made flesh, who came looking for us.

Beloved, you are not invisible. Not to Him.

2. The God Who Hears the Voiceless

The Angel tells Hagar what to name her son: Ishmael — “because the Lord has heard your affliction” (Genesis 16:11). In Arabic, إسماعيل, Ismāʿīl. As Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty reminds us, the name means “God hears.”

Years later, in chapter twenty-one, Hagar is in the wilderness again — sent away with bread and a skin of water. The water runs out. She lays the boy under a shrub and sits a distance away, because she cannot bear to watch him die. And she lifts her voice and weeps.

Then Scripture says something beautiful: “And God heard the voice of the lad” (Genesis 21:17).

She weeps — but God hears the boy. The text does not tell us how loud he cried. Perhaps he was too weak for more than a whisper. But the child whose very name means “God hears” — God heard him.

Now look again at the Gospel. The man has no voice. And Christ heals him “so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw” (Matthew 12:22). Saint Jerome teaches that what happened in this one man happens every day in the conversion of believers: the demon is driven out, they first see the light of faith, and then their mouths are opened in praise of God.

Some of us come to church today without words. Grief has taken them. Anxiety wakes us at three in the morning. A heaviness has settled on us that we cannot explain.

If that is you, hear this: a long sadness is not proof that God has left you, or that your faith has failed. Sometimes the bravest prayer is to let yourself be carried — like that man who was brought to Christ. Carried by a friend. By your father of confession. By a doctor or a counselor. God hears through all of them.

God hears the voice that cannot speak.

3. The God Who Opens Eyes

Back in the wilderness, Scripture says: “Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water” (Genesis 21:19). The well did not appear. It was already there. Hagar simply could not see it — until God opened her eyes.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria reads this as a promise for every soul that weeps like Hagar and cries out to God: such a soul will be shown mercy abundantly. “For God will open the eyes of their understanding, and they too will see the fountain of living water, that is, Christ.”

In the Gospel, Christ opens the man’s eyes and his mouth. The crowds are amazed: “Could this be the Son of David?” (Matthew 12:23).

But not everyone rejoices. The Pharisees — the ones who had the Law, who knew the Scriptures, who knew God — look at the very same miracle and say: “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons” (Matthew 12:24).

Saint John Chrysostom notices something shocking. The demon, he says, left quietly. But these men went on trying to slay Christ and to defame Him. Their hearts were more bitter than the evil spirit. Why? Envy — “than which no worse evil can exist.”

And Christ answers them: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). The Kingdom was standing in front of them — and they called it Beelzebub.

Do you see the contrast, beloved? An Egyptian outsider, running in the desert, looked up and said, “You are the God who sees me.” The teachers of Israel looked straight at the work of God and called it the devil’s.

This is a warning for those of us who “know God.” We know the hymns. We know the responses. We know the fasting days. And it is possible to stand before this altar every Sunday and slowly stop seeing. It is possible to watch God work in someone else — a newcomer, a sinner who has repented, a young person who is serving — and instead of rejoicing, to criticize. Familiarity can close the very eyes that grace once opened.

So let me ask you, gently, and let the question stay with you for a moment:

Where have I grown so used to God that I no longer see Him?

Whose blessing do I find it hard to rejoice in?

What burden have I never let God see?

And here is the good news. If we find our eyes closed, we do what Hagar did. We weep, and we cry out. The God who opened her eyes in the wilderness is the Lord who opened the eyes of the blind man. He has not changed.

Conclusion

Remember the well. It was there the whole time. Hagar only needed God to open her eyes.

Beloved, the fountain of living water is not far from us this morning. In a few moments the Lord who saw Hagar by the spring, the Lord who opened the eyes of the blind man, will come to us in His holy Body and precious Blood.

Some of us will come feeling invisible. Some of us will come feeling too familiar. Either way, we come the same way — with empty hands, asking Him to open our eyes.

And as you approach the Chalice, know this: before you ever look for Him, He has already seen you. He knows where you have come from. He knows where you are going. He hears the prayer you cannot put into words.

You are not invisible. You are not unheard. You are seen.

For our God is El Roi. He is the God who sees me.

O Lord Jesus Christ, You who saw Hagar in the wilderness and opened the eyes of the blind, see us today. Hear the prayers we cannot speak. Drive out of our hearts every envy and every hardness, and open our eyes to see You — in Your Church, in our brothers and sisters, and in Your holy Mysteries. Amen.

May the Lord bless us and transform us — that our homes may stand on the Rock, our hands may serve in the harvest, and our hearts may long for Heaven. Through the intercession of our Lady, the Theotokos Saint Mary, and the prayers of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew. Glory be to God forever. Amen.

Prepared and presented by Hegumen Fr. Andrew Awad, D.Min.