Monday afternoon I was in a local Christian bookstore looking for a book. I didn't find what I was looking for, but ended up buying a book called "When God Met a Girl" because the cover intrigued me. The author has taken ten women from the gospels and expanded their stories--women who only briefly met Jesus, women who only have a few verses about them, women whose lives were turned upside down by a chance encounter.
I've started reading the first few chapters, and it's totally changed my perspective on some of these women. Maybe these next few blogs will open your eyes too as I share some of what I have learned.
The first woman is found in John 8:1-12. We know her as "the woman caught in adultery." What an awful way to go down in history. I've always wondered why she was still called that after this encounter with Jesus, I doubt she could have been the same woman. Andrew Snaden, the author, gives her the name "Grace" instead.
The story opens with a woman being brought to Jesus as He teaching in the synagogue. She seems to have been caught in the very act of adultery, and she was being used as a pawn in a political game between the Pharisees and Jesus. They knew how they wanted to test Jesus, and if they were looking for someone who was committed adultery it would have been easy to go look for a prostitute. This had been seemingly planned against her!
Jesus didn't take the bait.
He saw the Pharisees just waiting to descend and condemn him on their way to stone her.
She was a nothing in their eyes.
She wasn't what they were really after, but that didn't matter to Him.
He saw a mess and a web of sin.
He saw a woman wrapped up in the middle of it all.
And he took compassion on her.
He didn't lash into the teachers of the law standing there.
He didn't defend the woman.
He knew as well as they did that she deserved to be stoned according to Moses.
He simply knelt down and wrote on the ground.
They kept looking for a fight.
He kept writing.
They continued questioning Him.
He straightened up and said to the crowd,
"All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!" (NLT)
He was the only one who could pick up that first stone.
And He chose not to.
But that wasn't enough.
Jesus knelt back down and continued writing in the dust.
And then from the oldest to the last teacher, they filed out of the synagogue one by one.
The crowd looks on as Jesus looks up at her and asks,
"Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?"
"No, Lord."
"Neither do I..." (NLT)
What! Was He forgiving this woman? Was she getting off the hook just like that? Why?
The Pharisees may have left, but what if they were waiting on the street outside.
Waiting to deal with her the way that they wanted to.
What had Jesus done about them?
It was all well and good that He had forgiven her, but what about tomorrow when Jesus moved on to the next town. Who would defend her then?
What had Jesus written in the dust that made them all turn and walk out? Had he written something that each person read as an open record of their own sin? Had He exposed the sin in each of their hearts with one personally-interpreted phrase? Had they been so embarrassed that the rest of the crowd could read it that they walked out in shame?
But Jesus wasn't done.
"...Go and sin no more." (NLT)
Maybe that's what she expected. Maybe she wanted Someone to realize that this act of adultery had not been a one-time thing--she was caught in a web of sin. Maybe she needed Someone who knew her story to tell her that she did have the power to change the ending of her story. Change her life.
Forgive her and free her.
Unexpected and unasked for freedom.
Unconditional forgiveness.
Grace.
