DAILY BYTE
In response to the accusations against this woman, Jesus bends down to write on the ground. Now, I would not be exaggerating if I said that speculation over exactly what Jesus wrote has filled hundreds of theology books and biblical commentaries.
I heard a feminist theologian who said that Jesus must have written: “It takes two to tango – so where’s the bloke?” Which is a very good point indeed!
Others reckon that Jesus wrote exactly what the last finger of God wrote in public (as recorded in the book of Daniel) – “You have been weighed and found wanting!” Still others say that perhaps Jesus was writing down the sins of all the woman’s accusers, so that they could face up to reality for themselves.
However, by far the most convincing reason that I have heard, is that the act of writing was for Jesus a nonverbal response – it was a refusal to engage in this condemnatory way of being. In the Mediterranean world of Jesus’ time, such an act of writing in the middle of a conversation would have been recognised as an act of refusal and disengagement.
Jesus was not refusing to answer, Jesus was just refusing to be this way – to enter this state of darkness. Instead, Jesus stood up and said: “Whoever is without sin can throw the first stone.” Then he bends down and writes on the ground again – once more refusing to enter into this culture of angry condemning and foolish self-righteousness.
Of course, most of us know the rest of the story. It’s like when Jesus stood up to speak, he also stood up to turn the lights on. For Jesus is the light of the world, and came to teach us a better way of be being religious in reminding us that God designed this universe around principles like relationship, mercy, forgiveness and freedom.
The Pharisees and Scribes did not like the sudden glare of this light. They didn’t like feeling as naked and vulnerable as they had made the woman to feel, so one by one they filed out leaving Jesus alone with her.
“Who condemns you then. Is no one left?” Jesus asks.
Once we have seen ourselves in the Pharisees, then and only then, is it safe to begin to find ourselves in the woman. This is where the story wants us to progress to. For the mercy, the freedom from dark condemnations as a way of living, the new light to see by that Jesus offered, was not only for the woman, but for the Pharisees as well!
They could also have been made free! They just shouldn’t have walked away.
They should have staying naked and vulnerable before their sins because although it is an uncomfortable place to be, it is still a place of truth, and remember it is the truth which sets us free.
If you been made uncomfortable by some challenge that God has brought into your life, then don’t walk away!
Stay right there so as you might receive God’s mercy.
PRAY AS YOU GO
O’ God, we recognise both our hypocrisy and our need. We ask that your merciful love and forgiveness would cover over every part of us and that the truth you bring into our lives would set us free. Amen.
FOCUS
John 8: 6-9 NRSV
They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
