Our traveler is weary. He has walked so many days and sene and heard so many things that his brain can no longer comprehend. It has been so much study, so much wonder that he almost needs a rest. He stops walking, in front of him, sitting on the ground, is a woman. She looks up at him, tears flowing down her cheeks.
“Did you hear Him?” She asks.
“Hear who?” Our traveler replies.
“The teacher.” She runs her hand across etching in the sand.
Our traveler stands straight and looks around. The Messiah had been there. He must have just missed Him.
“What did He say?” Our traveler asks.
“Let me tell you.” The woman answers.
John 8:3-11 ESV
[3] The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst [4] they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. [5] Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” [6] This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. [7] And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” [8] And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. [9] But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. [10] Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” [11] She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”]]
Our traveler reaches down and throws aside every custom He knows. He takes the woman by the hand and lifts her to her feet. He gives her his hankerchief. She takes his hand nervously.
“I know what I am in the eyes of the people, and I do not say they are wrong, but….He, He gave me a chance to change. Who does that?”
Our traveler pats her hand like a dad patting the hand of a nervous child, “The Messiah does that.”
He smiles and walks away.
The writing in the sand. The woman whom no one could throw a stone at. Jesus. We all recall the account of one of Jesus’s most famous lines. “Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.” Yet that is always where we stop. We don’t know what Jesus wrote. It’s frustrating that the deciples did not think to record it. What we know is that Jesus saw a woman who had sinned and was about to be killed. No chance for redemption. Yet, He offered her forgiveness and a second chance. This shows the difference between the law before Jesus came and the law after. Because much of the law is still relevant. However, before Christ law, said that this was sin and she was to be punished by death. After Christ law, said that she had sinned and was to be given an opportunity through the blood of Jesus to be forgiven. She had a chance to try again and this time to do better. Jesus said He did not condemn her and that she was to go and sin no more. Did she? We don’t know. She might have gone and went back to her old sinful life and then died without hope. Or she might have changed her life completely and become the woman God had meant her to be and then died with the promise of eternal life through Jesus’s forgiveness. Where she went after her meeting with Jesus we will never know. What we know is that Jesus saw someone who was broken by sin and He have her a chance to change. Just like He gives each of us a chance to change. He does not condone our sin, He gives us a chance to stop sinning and to become all we can be through Him.
Carried in the cross 