Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent - March 18, 2013
Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent
John 8:7 – 11
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
When Jesus wrote on the ground, the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees “heard it.”
I wonder what they heard? The text doesn’t report what Jesus wrote on the ground – purposely ambiguous, I believe – so I have no idea what they heard. These men have a reputation, especially in John’s Gospel, for being singularly stubborn and unwilling to consider any position but their own. Something, though, touched them in this encounter. They were not able to stand in condemnation of the woman. They walked away.
This is a big deal. Something happened, so that for a moment anyway, they dropped their ideals and firmly-held-beliefs. For at least this moment, something penetrated them and caused them to drop their previous intentions with the woman.
It wasn’t the physical threat of Jesus, but something much more interior, to be sure. I’m not sure what it was, but I want to notice when this happens to me. What would cause me to make an abrupt turn-around? What would bring me to a sudden change of course?
John 8:7 – 11
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
When Jesus wrote on the ground, the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees “heard it.”
I wonder what they heard? The text doesn’t report what Jesus wrote on the ground – purposely ambiguous, I believe – so I have no idea what they heard. These men have a reputation, especially in John’s Gospel, for being singularly stubborn and unwilling to consider any position but their own. Something, though, touched them in this encounter. They were not able to stand in condemnation of the woman. They walked away.
This is a big deal. Something happened, so that for a moment anyway, they dropped their ideals and firmly-held-beliefs. For at least this moment, something penetrated them and caused them to drop their previous intentions with the woman.
It wasn’t the physical threat of Jesus, but something much more interior, to be sure. I’m not sure what it was, but I want to notice when this happens to me. What would cause me to make an abrupt turn-around? What would bring me to a sudden change of course?
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