ALPHA MAAMA (A.M.)

 Falaite ‘Okatopa 13, 2023

In the Wilderness

Ko e Fonua Mōmoa

PSALM 107:33-36

HE TURNS RIVERS INTO A DESERT, SPRINGS OF WATER INTO THIRSTY GROUND, A FRUITFUL LAND INTO A SALTY WASTE, BECAUSE OF THE EVIL OF ITS INHABITANTS. HE TURNS A DESERT INTO POOLS OF WATER, A PARCHED

LAND INTO SPRINGS OF WATER. AND THERE HE LETS THE HUNGRY DWELL, AND THEY ESTABLISH A CITY TO LIVE IN.

SAAME 107:33-36

33 ‘Oku ne liliu ‘a e potu vaitafe‘ia ko e fonua mōmoa, Ko e feitu‘u matavaia ko e potu ‘auinua: 34 ‘Oku ne liliu ‘a e fonua mahu ko e ano mahimahi: Koe‘uhi ko e kovi ‘a e kakai ‘oku nofo ai. 35 ‘Oku ne liliu ‘a e fonua mōmoa ko e tokanga vai, Mo e fonua mamate ko e ‘ū fauniteni: 36 Pea ne tuku ke nofo ai ‘a e fiekaia, Pea nau langa ha kolo nofo‘anga:

The Lord of Israel is a turning-everything-topsy-turvy kind of God. Uglifying beauty and beautifying ugly, making the dead alive and the alive dead-well, that's just another day at the office. Psalm 107 poeticizes these actions with the vision of croplands transmogrified into salt wastes, deserts transformed into watered gardens. The midbar, often translated "desert" or "wilderness," is the general name for vast, arid regions, such as where Israel languished for forty years. The midbar evokes multiple images-death, suffering, godforsakenness-but certainly not water. But simply by his will and word, God "turns a midbar into pools of water" (v. 35).

This is how God always operates: he wrenches life out of death, hope out of despair, creation out of nothing, his Son out of the grave-and us with him. As Martin Luther once said, "God breaks what is whole and makes whole what is broken." No souls are too broken, or too desert-dry, that our Father can't water them and heal them in Christ. 

We give thanks to you, O Lord, for you are good, and your steadfast love endures forever (Ps. 107:1).