Sins As Scarlet
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he . . . said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” . . . Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?”
It’s a scandalous story set in seventeenth-century Boston. A married woman named Hester Prynne has an adulterous affair with a young pastor named Arthur Dimmesdale.
Author Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter shows us how the religious leaders of Boston dealt with adulterers. In the case of Hester Prynne, they made her wear the red letter A on her clothing.
No one discovers Dimmesdale’s complicity until later in the story, so he doesn’t have to wear a symbol that others could see. Still, his guilt and shame haunted him in other ways.
In this fascinating scene from John’s Gospel, a small letter A is not enough to publicly condemn a sinner for her sexual misdeeds.
You’ve got to hand it to the Pharisees. They were tough on sin— at least some sins, and at least those sins that were committed by others.
In this case, the target was an easy one: a woman who had been caught in adultery.
The stage was set for another in the ongoing series of encounters between Jesus and the religious leaders of his day.
As usual, Jesus rose to the challenge, telling the Pharisees they could go ahead and stone the woman. But Jesus wanted the first stone to be thrown by a man who had never sinned.
All the righteous indignation and mob emotion that had been growing to a fevered pitch was now punctured by one simple statement.
Once the Pharisees had been dealt with, Jesus turned to the woman, who probably still wore the look of one facing execution.
Jesus was well aware of her sins, but he looked beyond these infractions to her heart, which was hungry for salvation. He forgave the woman, commanding her to sin no more.
In our day, sexual sins continue to arouse the anger of men concerned about righteousness and obedience to God’s law.
That’s all well and good, but in pursuing righteousness, we also need to remember grace and forgiveness, or else we will wind up as self-deceived as the Pharisees.
Father, I thank you for the gift of your forgiveness. Help me to receive it for my own sins and to extend it to others when they need it, too.