For the Fifth Sunday of Lent, we turn to Saint John (8:1-11) who provides us with the incomparable story of the woman accused of, and about to be stoned for, adultery. God’s compassionate presence in our midst through Jesus Christ means completely new possibilities and options, both to anyone accused and to everybody else.
The accusers
According to the evangelist, Jesus had been holding teach-ins within the temple precincts during the day, while staying at night on the Mount of Olives. His growing popularity measured by the crowds gathering to hear Him must have annoyed the Pharisees and scribes. They were regarded more or less as the competent teachers of the people, and now this upstart from Nazareth was upstaging them. The scribes were the legal experts or the lawyers, and the Pharisees were the exemplars in virtuous living faithful to every prescription of the law. These two groups were both respected and feared by the public.
It was rather irregular to drag a woman accused of adultery before Jesus. That would ordinarily be handled by the Sanhedrin, and inasmuch as capital punishment was involved, it was a case ultimately for the Roman authorities. But the evangelist said outright that the purpose of the whole confrontation was not judicial at all; the scribes and Pharisees wanted to trap Jesus into committing some legal faux pas or mistake that could be elevated to a formal case against him.
The accused and the judge
Adultery then was usually the sin of an unfaithful wife; an unfaithful husband could not be charged with adultery. The woman must have been married and was seen sinning by at least two men (since only men were recognized as official or competent witnesses). The appearance of a formal interrogation was maintained by having the woman stand in full view of everyone. There are obvious parallels between this case and the story of Susanna (Daniel 8), though here the woman accused was apparently guilty. This woman caught in sin probably was not expecting much by way of exoneration. But she must have been terrified by the rabid fury of her frenzied accusers thirsting for her blood.
All the more striking was the serene behavior of Jesus, teaching the crowd in the temple area and suddenly confronted with the cowering accused and the howling accusers pressing Him for a decision/opinion on the charge of adultery. Without saying a word, He listened to all the accusers have to present, then He bent down and started writing on the ground with His finger, a gesture clearly intended to say something Did He make a list of the sins of the accusers, or was He indicating that a divine commentary to the case was due, similar to the mysterious writing on the wall in Daniel (5:24), because the writing and the wrist and the hand that wrote it came from God? Or was Jesus dramatizing Jeremiah (17:13): “Those who turn away from you shall be written on the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.” It could also be that Jesus was just showing lack of interest on the self-righteousness of the Pharisees and scribes.
Alálaong bagá, when He finally spoke, the words of Jesus would galvanize the whole proceeding into a triumph of grace: The one without sin was to cast the first stone against the woman. The presumed definitiveness of the argument against the accused frizzled out; the accusers exited from the scene shamed. One on one with the woman, Jesus showed Himself more than just a judge as the accusers would have wanted Him to be. He was her savior beyond her expectation. He did not ignore her sin but went beyond it. He pardoned her, and sent her off on her way to a new life in the grace of God’s mercy. As the sacrament of divine mercy, Jesus was a compassionate and wise judge committed to forgive and rehabilitate, not merely to condemn and to punish.
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