The Very Best Part
The Gospel is the story of the Pharisees, bringing a woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus. They are trying to trap Jesus into contradicting the Law of Moses. So, the story goes, Jesus is teaching in the synagogue, the Pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery to him. They toss her on the ground in front of Jesus. The woman is in a heap on the ground at Jesus’ feet. The Pharisees remind Jesus that the Law of Moses says such women should be stoned. They ask what he thinks should be done.
I wonder if Jesus at that moment thought of his mother. Thirty-three years before, she would have been subjected to the same fate as this woman. Yet, in the act of absolute faith in God, Joseph saved Mary and Jesus from the threat that now faced this woman. Perhaps Jesus knew this unjust fate imposed on women. As much as he needed to avoid their trap, he also wanted to teach us about his mother’s dignity and the dignity of all other women.
When the Pharisees ask the question about the woman’s fate, Jesus doesn’t answer. When they push him to respond, he tells them to go ahead and stone her, but one of them without sin should cast the first stone. The story says they all went away one by one until no one was left.
These men came ready to stone a woman for a sin. Instead, Jesus forced them to look into their own hearts and see their sins. Their sins were like the rocks they carried.
This is where the story becomes one of the saddest stories in scripture. Sad because the Pharisees left before Jesus spoke to the woman. They missed the best part!
Jesus asks the woman where they all are, have they not condemned her? She answers, no. She was all alone with Jesus when the best part came. It was an intimate moment between them. He looked into her eyes and said: “Neither do I condemn you.”
The Pharisees left with their hands and their pockets filled with rocks. They left and kept their stones and their sins with them. They never experienced forgiveness. They never saw the look of love that the woman saw in Jesus’ eyes.
Our own sinfulness is like those rocks they carried. I tried an experiment not so long ago. I picked up a small stone early in the morning when I was walking my dog. I held that stone in my hand all day, no matter what I was doing. Sometimes it was an annoyance, and sometimes just a bother. It is hard to take a shower, wash your hair, cook a meal, to speak nothing of typing with a rock in your hand. But at the end of the day, I realized the regretful part was that there were times when I completely forgot about the stone in my hand. The times when it didn’t annoy me at all.
Our sins should bother us. They should annoy us. We should never allow ourselves to become complacent and ignore or fail to remember when we have sinned. Our remembering is not to assure we hold on to guilt or beat ourselves up for our failings. We remember so we can place our sins where they really belong. Our sins belong at the foot of the cross.
So, unlike the Pharisees who left carrying their sins with them, we place our sins at the feet of Jesus as the woman did. Then we look into Jesus’ eyes like that humiliated woman did and hear his words, “I do not condemn you.” Finally, we get to take the hand of Jesus as he reaches down to us to help us up out of the pit of our failings.
As we approach Holy Week, I hope you will join me as I spend some time remembering the sins I carry that burden me and hold me back.
I invite you to spiritually join me as I place them at the feet of Jesus and look up into his loving eyes and hear his words, “I do not condemn you.”
That is the very best part, don’t miss it.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
