Jesus’ love for sinners can be surprising for one who is yet to understand who Jesus is. In fact, I keep wondering if Jesus were to come into our world today if he will be accepted. Sometimes I am tempted to conclude that people of our time will do to Him worse than the Jews and the Scribes did to Him. How can one who claims to be the Son of God; someone who claims to be righteous always mingle with notorious sinners? 

On several occasions He continues to show his love for sinners. For instance in Matthew 10:30 He called Matthew, the tax collector whom the people knew as a great sinner to be his disciple. In Luke 7 He accepted the sinful woman who anointed him at a Pharisee’s house. He made a Samaritan the hero of one of his parables in Luke 10 and a tax collector the hero of another in Luke 18. While in Luke 19 He went to dinner with Zacchaeus, a tax collector. In John 4 He dealt with the woman at the well in a straightforward and very respectful manner. And then in our gospel reading today this same Jesus told the woman caught in the very act of adultery to go and sin no more rather than giving the Jews who wanted to stone her a go ahead.

Adultery is a very terrible sin both in the ancient days and today. It is one of the swords that the devil uses in cutting down many marriages to the level that it cannot be picked together again. There is hardly any culture that is in support of adultery. In fact in some cultures it is believed that if a woman commits adultery, she puts the husband in jeopardy such that the husband has no other choice but death. Because of the seriousness of the sin of adultery the book of Leviticus 20:10 says that “if a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death”.

In fact Deuteronomy 22:23-24 made it clear the kind of death such an adulterous will die . It says “if a young woman has been promised in marriage to a man, and another man meets her in the city and lies with her, they shall bring the two to the city gate and stone them to death…” Again to show the seriousness of adultery, Ezekiel prescribed in Ezekiel 23:43-47 how such persons should be treated. It says “then I said about the one wearied by adultery: Now, let them use her as a prostitute, for that is what she is…the Lord God says thus, ‘let a great assembly be gathered against them, let them be delivered to terror and spoil. The assembly will stone them, have them cut in pieces by the sword, kill their sons and daughters and burn their houses”.

Looking at these Bible verses so well, you will notice that the law that requires the execution of the woman also requires the execution of the man who was her partner in the sin of adultery. But the story we have today in our gospel reading made no mention of the man.  In that patriarchal society, people were more likely to excuse a man than a woman for sexual sin. 

Also, these scribes and Pharisees need only this woman for their evil purposes against Jesus.  It is really Jesus who is on trial here.  The scribes and Pharisees have seen him deal mercifully with sinners; they have seen him relate well with sinners and so for them he has passed his boundary for doing so.  They failed to realize and imagine the shame and fear that this woman experiences in this situation. Surely she and her partner were discovered and interrupted while having intercourse, a traumatic event in itself. Now she is brought into a public forum where her sin is publicly announced. The charges against her call for the death penalty, and it seems quite possible that she will be brutally executed within the next few hours and very likely denied a proper burial.

It is difficult to imagine how any person could be more miserable than this woman is at this moment. But all of these meant nothing to her accusers who see her, not as a human being, but as a tool that they can use to entrap Jesus. They care nothing about her as a person and so they brought her to Jesus to judge.

The situation for Jesus was indeed a very dangerous one. If Jesus had said the woman ought to be stoned to death, two things would have been involved. First he would have lost the good name he had gained for loving and having mercy on sinners and may never again be called friend of sinners.

Secondly, he would have come in coalition with the Roman law, for the Jews had no power to pass or carry out death sentences on anyone. And if he had said the woman should be pardoned, they would have said he is encouraging the people to break the Mosaic law and encourage people to commit sin.

So what should He do? Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his fingers. Looking at the whole gospel, one realizes that Jesus never wrote anything except at this incident. What then did he write? There have been many speculations about what actually Jesus wrote on the ground. Some said probably he was writing psalm 130:3 “if you O Lord should mark our guilt”. Some said he only wants to gain enough time in order not to jump into hasty conclusions. While some said that He bent down to hide His shame in that the woman was brought to Him naked. And finally some said he was writing their sins on the ground.

In the midst of all these speculations what is important to us is that Jesus, while it is clear that the woman is guilty, Jesus neither condemns nor excuses her. His statement acknowledges her guilt, but simply challenges her to abstain from sin in the future; he offered her a chance for a new life; he gave her another opportunity; hence he raised up his head and said to the woman “has no one condemned you? Neither do I. Go and sin no more.

We are all sinners in every degree; we all offend the good God. But thank God we are not dealing with the Scribes and Pharisees as our judges but with a merciful God. No matter how many and how serious our sins have been, God is always ready to forgive us. All he wants us to do is to ask him to forgive us and then we will hear him say to us “I will not condemn you, Go AND SIN NO MORE”.