I am going to revisit some of the Christmas articles I have written in previous years in the coming weeks, starting with this one. I may freshen them up a bit as I do so. This was one of the first articles I wrote on this blog, and I think the message still resonates today: A Message in a Manger.
When Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you,” it isn’t the end of the story.
I have been thinking lately about the phrase, “Do not go on sinning.” These were the words Jesus spoke to the woman caught in adultery after he rescued her from her accusers. We forget about them, perhaps, because of the force of the rest of the story.
The Pharisees brought her to Jesus one day and challenged him: “’Teacher,’ they said to Jesus [with a hint of affected deference, I imagine], ‘this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?’”
They were trying to trap Jesus into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus was not shaken or disturbed by the dilemma they posed him. He stooped to write in the dust with his finger.
The awkward silence was broken finally by a demand for an answer. Jesus obliged,
“Alright, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”
John 8:7
Significantly, Jesus didn’t deny what the Law says. His answer implied agreement with the judgment of the Law, but his answer turned the table on the accusers and focused attention on them.
His answer is reminiscent of apportion of the prayer that Jesus taught his followers to pray and of a segment of the Sermon on the Mount:
“And forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Matt. 6:12
“[I]n the same way you judge others, you will be judged….”
Matt. 7:2
The pregnant silence continued again, as Jesus returned to writing in the dust with this finger. This time, the demands for an answer slipped away with the accusers, one by one, leaving alone with the accused woman.
The focus of the encounter had shifted dramatically from the adulterous woman to her accusers. Their self-righteous smugness turned to bitter disappointment and shame as Jesus put them in their place.
Now alone with the woman, Jesus asked her, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”; “No, Lord,” she replied. “Then, “Neither do I,” Jesus said.
This seems to be the perfect way for Jesus to end the story. The accusers of the adulterous woman were sinners too. When Jesus said, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone”, none of them could do it. They knew they would be condemning themselves. What Jesus wrote in the sand must have hit home with them.
The story would be perfect if it ended there, right? Jesus, the Lord and Savior of the world, says he doesn’t condemn the adulteress woman either!
But that isn’t the end of the story. The story ends with Jesus adding, “Go and sin no more.” (John 8:11)
Those words hang there now for me, as I imagine they did for the woman.
What wisdom and command of the situation Jesus had shown! The pompous self-righteousness of the religious leaders who used this poor woman as a ploy to back Jesus into a corner was deflated. The public humiliation and shame she must have felt was heaped back on her accusers in divine vindication. The gentleness with which he treated her and affirmed her value is beautiful.
But, when the men had left, and she was alone with Jesus, he left her with the instruction, “Go and sin no more.”
Jesus didn’t condemn her, but Jesus didn’t release her to go back to the lifestyle and choices she had made to that point. Why not?
The words, “go and sin no more”, haunt me as I think about myself and how easily I fall into sinful attitudes and stumble. It would so much easier if Jesus hadn’t tagged those five words on to the end of this story!
Continue reading “There Is Now No Condemnation, but Go and Sin No More.”
Gently, autumnal breezes
Whisper over brown grasses
Through summer greens
Yielding now yellow and orange.
Like the caress of sweet Chernobyl air
Is life in surrender to death
Forboding a familiar numbness
Opaquely covering the soft nuance
Of a summer day giving way
To the inexorable coming of winter.
Longing, memories already fading
Into dreams and Paper Castles.
We are Rainbow Seekers passing through.
In these present times, the corona virus threat looms large. Every day the number of cases and deaths rise, but we will get through this. We may not be able to see the end of it yet, and it might last longer than any of us hope, but we will get through it.
We might long, now, for life to return to normal, but I really hope it doesn’t.
The corona virus is a wake up call for everyone – for those who are vulnerable, and those who aren’t – because what we do doesn’t just affect ourselves. Our actions affect those around us. We are learning that lesson collectively.
The Bible puts it this way: if we sow the wind, we reap the whirlwind. (Hosea 8:7) We see the way it works out with the virus: one person can infect three, and three people can infect nine, and the spread of the virus spreads exponentially if we don’t take measures to arrest the unseen enemy of our bodies.
The same principles apply to sin. Our selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed, proud and arrogant sinful proclivities affect (infect) others, and the influence spreads.
It spreads to our children. It spreads to our spouses. It spreads to our co-workers, neighbors and people we contact inadvertently every day. What we do and what we say and the attitudes of our hearts, if they are informed, motivated and inhabited by the sinful nature within us, has unintended consequences … for ourselves and for others around us.
What we can’t see can and does hurt us and hurts others.
Continue reading “A Call for Changing Priorities: Taking Hold of God’s Promise”
Today someone spoke about going “from selfishness to salvation”. I have never heard anyone put it that way before, but it’s as accurate a statement as any I have heard.
Jesus said, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:25) Loving and holding tightly to my own life, shutting God out, refusing to concede control to my Creator, desiring to go my own way is the life of a person without God. Marked by a desire to control my own destiny, to be captain of my own soul, so that I can say, at the end of the day, “I did it my way”, is a life lived without God.
The terrifying reality is that God will let us go our own way. He didn’t prevent Adam and Eve from eating the forbidden fruit. They were tempted by the desire to “be like God”[a], to define good and evil for themselves, to make their own choices and, ultimately, to usurp God’s place of prominence in their lives.
The fruit they ate was “good”; it was delightful and even desirable.[b] The fruit, itself, wasn’t necessarily bad (the knowledge of good and evil). The decision to go their own ways, to assert their own wills over the will of God, was their downfall.
Without that fateful choice we might live idyllic lives. We might forever be “perfect” little angels, but God obviously had something else in mind. God must have known the choice we would make. Right?
That choice doomed us to the imperfection of our humanness, but it also opened the door to something else completely. It opened up the opportunity for us to enter into a relationship with God we could never have known in that “perfect”, idyllic, innocent (and naive) state.
Continue reading “Selfishness to Salvation”
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