Saturday after the Fourth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on July 16, 2022 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
“Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.” The scribes and Pharisees are once again trying to catch Jesus off guard so they could accuse Him of doing something wrong. Under Roman law, Jews did not have the authority to execute someone; Jesus would have broken the law by telling them to go ahead and stone the woman.
However, there is a problem for the scribes and Pharisees. They wished to uphold the Law, but they forgot something, or more accurately, they forgot someone. Where is the man who was “in the very act” with this woman? Leviticus 20:10 clearly states that both the man and the woman were subject to stoning. Yet, what the man had done seemed unimportant to the scribes and Pharisees. The hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees is glaring. They failed to uphold the very law they were trying to impose against this woman.
But that still leaves the adulterous woman. What are we to make of Jesus’ statement, “Neither do I condemn you”? There are two points to be made. One, as a matter of law, witnesses were required to testify against the law breaker. But there was no one to testify against her, for all of them had left. Two, Jesus is not condoning what she did. Jesus clearly calls it sin and tells her, “go and sin no more.”
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.
