3rd Passiontide
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| Dore |
John 8: 1-12
Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives; but as soon
as day dawned he was already in the Temple court, where the people flocked to
him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The teachers of the law and the
Pharisees led in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand in the middle,
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 said this only as a trap, in order finally to have a reason for accusing
him.
But Jesus bent down, and started to write something
in the earth with his finger. When they kept on pressing him with questions, he
stood up and said to them, “Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the
first stone at her.” And again, he bent down and wrote in the earth.
When they heard this, their conscience began to
stir within them, and they went out, one after the other, beginning with the
eldest. And only Jesus was left and the woman who stood in the middle. Jesus
stood up, and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one passed judgment
on you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I judge you,” Jesus declared. “Go
now, and leave your life of sin.”
3rd
Passiontide
March 25, 2012
John 8: 1-12
If we were to go to the beach, and write ‘I love you’ in the
sand, the letters would be washed away. The words would disappear. But their
meaning, the love itself, would still exist.
Our deeds are the letters we write into the earth. Whether
public or secret, they may seem to disappear. But their meaning remains.
A
modern poet writes:
…it's wrong to think people are a thing apart
from the whole, as if we'd sprung
from an idea out in space, rather than emerging
from the sequenced larval mess of creation
that binds us with the others,
all playing the endgame of a beautiful planet….[1]
Jesus
bent down and started to write something in the earth. The story doesn’t say
what he wrote. But it certainly had something to do with deeds and their
meaning for the earth.
Christ’s
whole life, His death and His resurrection have inscribed their meaning
permanently into the earth. And their meaning still speaks: I love you, He
says. I recognize your deeds. And I love you. Let my love for you shine before
you. Let my love give you the strength for deeds of worth.
