Not to Condemn, but to Give Life

 As He had done so many times before, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives to pray. Then He came back to the Temple the next morning. A crowd began to gather and He began to teach (John 8:1-2). Only thing, His teaching was interrupted by some teachers of religious law. While He had been praying on the Mount of Olives, they had been engaged in a different sort of “preying.” 

They came to Him with a woman caught in adultery, in the very act. They remind the sinless One of what the law of Moses said — that she should be stoned. They ask Him, but “what do you say?” (John 8:4). 

Christ Who came to give us zoe (“blessed life, life that satisfies” John 10:10) is being asked to sanction taking away the life of one He came to save. 

Friends, God is not surprised that we are sinners. That’s why He came! He came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. 

Jesus seems to ignore their question and begins to stoop and to write something in the sand. Whatever He wrote so convicted them (from the oldest to the youngest) that they all dropped their stones and went away. And I marvel at the heart of Jesus. How kind of Him to write in the sand! For if he had written on a more permanent surface, we might be able to go to Palestine and see what He wrote about them. As much as we feel they may have deserved it, Jesus would not shame those who shamed this woman. 

LORD, give me the heart of Jesus. Give me the mind of Christ!

Finally, it’s just this woman. And Jesus. None of those accusers proved worthy to stone her (though in that early morning drama they had self-righteously presented themselves as if they were). 

But Jesus, the sinless One, the only Man worthy to stone her didn’t. 

Listen to Him: “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.”

If you don’t know Jesus, I’m sorry that some of us who bear the name Christian have given you the impression that He’s got a lightning bolt in His hand and is eager to hurl it from heaven to strike you on your wicked hips. No, Jesus doesn’t like sin. He knows that sin hurts those who engage in it. 

But let us be clear that Jesus came to give you life, to give me life, to give that Woman caught in adultery life, even to give those self-righteous Pharisees life! 

He sees you. You are not the shameful thing you have done. Jesus sees better for you. Jesus sees you better! He came to love you and draw you away from sin and to Himself. Jesus is not out to get you; Jesus came to save you.