Saturday after the Fourth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on July 3, 2021 by under
Scripture: St. John 8:1-11 (NKJV)
8:1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. 3 Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, 4 they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?” 6 This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.
7 So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” 8 And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10 When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”
11 She said, “No one, Lord.”
And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”
Devotion
“Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?” This was a trap. The Jews did not care about justice; they only wanted to justify their hatred. If He said, “Stone her,” they would say, “Then You are no different from us.” If He said, “Let her go,” they would respond, “Then you oppose Moses and are a false prophet.” The Jews did not care about justice, or about Moses; they just wanted to trap the Christ.
The Lord is not fooled. Their hypocrisy was obvious. For one thing, where was the man? It takes two to commit adultery. If they cared about justice, they would have brought the man, too. It is possible they had plotted to trap the woman in sin in order to trap the Christ, and they protected the adulterous man because he was part of the plot.
Was the woman a sinner? Certainly. But the woman was sufficiently humbled by the weight of the Law. The Jews, on the other hand, were proud of their hypocrisy. Therefore, Christ shows mercy to the woman, but ignores the Jews. Even so, Christ is ready to forgive every sin, as soon as the sinner repents. There is no sin so ugly that He will not forgive it. But hypocrisy—born of unbelief—is when a man refuses to repent. As he refuses to repent, so God refuses him forgiveness.
Prayer: Grant, O Lord, we beseech Thee, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by Thy governance that Thy Church may joyfully serve Thee in all godly quietness; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
