ALPHA MAAMA (A.M.)

 FALAITE MA’ASI 6, 2026

TEUTALONOME 21-23; 1 PITA 1:13-21

The biblical story marches slowly to a man hanging on a tree: Jesus, who died as our substitute, the perfect sacrificial Lamb.

Ko e talanoa ‘o e Tohitapu, ‘oku fononga mamalie ki ha tangata ‘oku tautau ‘i he ‘akau: ko Sisu, na’e pekia ko hotau fetongi, ko e Lami haohaoa na’e feilaulau.

I wake up every morning with hope and joy. It's not because I always feel great. As I write this, I am in unrelenting pain. Something has happened to my back, which makes everything I do painful. Getting out of a chair is torturous. Riding in a car is agonizing. But my hope and joy are not diminished. My hope is not based on what God has called me to do. It does not rely upon people's opinions of me or my financial security. My hope is not based on the fact that I am married to my hero or that I have four wonderful children. My hope really does look back to a tree, outside of the walls of an ancient city, where an innocent man willingly suffered the cruelest and most humiliating kind of death, crucifixion, for the sake of my forgiveness, my reconciliation to God, my adoption into his family, and my eternal place with him in glory. Jesus is my hope. Jesus is the source of my joy. His work on my behalf, his presence, and his grace-not my suffering, my work, or my family-define me. My chronic pain does not make me angry or bitter, because I am daily blown away by the knowledge of what he has done for me and of who I am in him.

In Deuteronomy 21 God gives directions for how to deal with a man who has committed a capital crime, that is, one punishable by death. Such a person is to be hanged on a tree. It's a hard passage to read, but it is there for our guidance and protection. This passage sits in the Old Testament to remind us that God takes sin seriously, so we better take it seriously too. In order to have a relationship with his people, God never ignores or minimizes sin. This passage has been retained to remind us that something has to happen that will allow sinners to have a relationship with a perfectly holy God.

Deuteronomy 21:22-23 points us to two trees. First, it looks back to the tree in the garden of Eden, where temptation and sin first entered the world and separated people from their Creator. Second, it looks forward to that tree on the hill of Golgotha, where Jesus willingly suffered and died for our justification and eternal adoption into the family of God. In Deuteronomy, one man hangs because of his sin; on Calvary, one man hangs for the sins of others. In Deuteronomy, one man suffers the penalty for his iniquity; on Calvary one man pays the penalty for multitudes. One tree is a tree of death; the other tree is, ultimately, a tree of life. On one tree hangs a man who has no hope; on the other tree a man's death gives eternal hope to a countless company of sinners.

We have hope because of what Jesus did on that tree, and because of what he continues to do for us with mercies that are new every day.