Wednesday, March
15, 2017
Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning
he was back again at the Temple. A crowd
soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the
teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught
in the act of adultery. They put her in
front of the crowd. “Teacher,” they said
to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses
says to stone her. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying
something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the
dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again
and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first
stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. When the accusers heard this, they slipped
away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the
middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to
the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” John 8:1-11(NLT)
The woman was caught in the jaws of the Law; the last thing she expected
was to be released without at least being beaten and humiliated. There was a beating, but it was her accusers
who took the blows. Many people have
speculated over what Jesus wrote in the sand.
A popular guess is that he wrote the sins of the woman’s accusers in the
dust. It was just too much for them to
bear the weight of being revealed as unworthy to accuse the woman, so they
slinked away in shame.
This snapshot of Jesus exercising intense wisdom and authority may have
only taken about 5 minutes to play-out in real time. But it has had its lasting effects on every
part of our history and culture. Even
where Christ is hardly an afterthought, people understand the weight of he who is without sin casting the first
stone.
Re-reading the passage again this morning brought thoughts of the current
debate over immigration. I know; I know…this
is a particularly controversial subject right now, and I also know the woman
caught in adultery wasn’t an immigrant.
But she was clearly breaking custom and the law of the land. Those who brought her to be judged by Jesus
had the full weight of the culture and its rules behind their accusation. Their problem however went much deeper than
whether they were within the rules; their hearts were black with
self-righteousness and manipulative hatred.
They had no compassion, and, worse, were only using the woman as a pawn
to set a trap for Jesus. Their actions were,
at the least, self-absorbed selfishness, and, at worst, bordering on sociopathic
cruelty. They “caught” an adulteress;
Jesus “released” her with new hope.
My early morning brain-wandering led me to stand near Jesus and see what
he might be writing in the sand about our current stew concerning those who
have transgressed American laws by sneaking across the border. Looking into the dust, with my mind’s eye I
saw Jesus write “Plymouth Rock” and I thought of people who were escaping their
homeland’s persecution for freedom, and whose descendants would eventually persecute
those Native American people who first greeted them at a place with no border. Can we see the word “hypocrite” written at
Jesus’ feet?
I know; I know…its different today, border security, jobs, culture, law
and order, and every other rationalization we can imagine. There is a case to be made for all of that! It’s just that somewhere along the line we
have to do some critical thinking about what we do, and upon which side of the
circle we will stand when it comes to being our brother’s keeper, or, like
Cain, our brother’s destroyer.
For You Today
Well,
actually, for me, today…and you, if you will.
The question I most want to answer in my own mind today is: What is more important, our American way
of life…or being Christ-like?
I’m pretty certain the two are not one and the same.
NOTES
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