The Response

Love comes with a responsibility.
The Gospel of John records the story of the woman caught in adultery. The teachers of the law and Pharisees were ready to crush and stone this woman, the adulteress. Despised, rejected, and ashamed - she was forced to stand before a group of people – as if her condemnation was not enough.

Can you imagine the accusations she was getting? I can hear the awful names she was called. I can see the tears coming from a fearful heart. I can picture the anguish in her walk as she is pushed forward into the crowd where Jesus was teaching in the temple courts.
“Doesn’t the law command us to stone to death a woman like this? Tell us, what do you say we should do with her?”
It’s easy for me to imagine. I have been both, the one accusing and the one needing forgiveness.

John 8 has been one of the most quoted chapters when it comes to grace and repentance. We know the story: “Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Oh grace, it never seems fair until you are the one in need of it.
The accusers were confused and angry. She deserved death, according to the Law of Moses, the supreme source of authority, the highest way. She must face the consequences now; it’s only the right thing. Right?
Indignant and furious, the self-righteous men started dropping their stones. Offenses and whispers were the narrative of the moment – for everyone had sin. They left with a convicted conscience, for grace always finds us where we are.

“Now what do you say?” It was the main question the scholars had for Jesus.
Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
His response was grace. Our response should be holiness. But pursuing holiness without a profound experience of grace will be impossible.

We first have to embrace his response, so we can in turn respond accordingly.
It seems like the story should finish in John 8:11, but John 8:12 is the perfect end-credit scene: “I am light to the world, and those who embrace me will experience life-giving light, and they will never walk in darkness.”

The day came for Jesus and it will surely come to us, when we have to answer: “Now what do you say?”