How many of you
enjoy being publicly humiliated? How
many of you look forward to having your most embarrassing moments shared with
the world? How many of you appreciate it
when your most shameful actions become the topic of conversation around the
water cooler or the lunch table?
Nobody? Well, I can’t say I’m all
that surprised.
There’s an old
saying that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. But I think we all know that’s not really
true. Sure, for a celebrity or a company
almost anything can be spun to their advantage as long as they’re name is in
the news. But for you and me, for
regular people…there are things we’d like to keep private. There are things we’d like to keep anyone
else from knowing about. There are things
that we might even wish we could forget about ourselves.
Our gospel reading
for today deals with a woman who I have to think experienced a kind of
mortifying shame and embarrassment that blows anything any of us have faced out
of the water. To begin with, she was
caught in the act of adultery. Even if
she had been with her husband, that would have been hugely embarrassing for
people to walk in on. But when it wasn’t
her husband…that just made it that much worse.
And then to add to the insult, she didn’t just face dealing with
whispers and gossip about her spreading around the neighborhood. She was dragged out into the public
square. Her shame was loudly made known,
possibly even seen depending on how clothed they allowed her to get. And then to add injury to insult, she was
facing the prospect of rocks being thrown at her until she was dead.
Often when we look
at this account from Scripture, we approach it a sort of morality tale. It’s kind of a go-to story for the idea of
“judge not lest ye be judged.” We focus
not on the woman, but the crowd. We look
at the Pharisees and those who were preparing to stone her. We focus on how Jesus’ words convicted them, how it caused them to drop their
stones and go on their way. The primary
relationship in the story becomes not Jesus and the woman, but Jesus and the
Pharisees. The woman’s situation, her
safety, becomes an interesting epilogue.
So often when we
look at this story, the grace of Jesus is almost an afterthought. A happy accident brought about by the angry
crowd being shamed into leaving. But
that’s just simply not the case. Grace
is central to this story. It’s the
driving, transformative power at work.
It’s Jesus’ grace toward the woman that leads the change, it’s grace
that makes all the difference. Because
here’s the thing we tend to overlook for some reason. She was guilty.
Regardless of how
she was caught in the act, this woman was
guilty of adultery. Regardless of the
equal guilt of the apparently ignored man in this sordid affair, the woman was guilty of sin, she did have sex with a man other than her
husband. The sins and failures of others
didn’t cancel that out. Or as your
mother may have told you as a kid, two wrongs don’t make a right. And so, regardless of the Pharisees own
sinful scheming and motivations behind their actions and questions, the law did establish that the penalty for
adultery was stoning. The cost of her
sin was death.
This is what this
unnamed woman was facing. There she
stood, barely clothed. Her shame visible
to the world. Listening to the insults
being hurled her way. All her sins and
failings being thrown in her face as tears almost surely streaked her face. The saying is “sticks and stone may break my
bones but words may never hurt me,” but I think we all recognize that’s a load
of rubbish. Words cut deep. And this woman is hearing them all. She’s feeling the full weight of everything
being said about her. And she knows no
one is going to speak up on her behalf.
Because what can be said? She was
caught in the act.
Jesus was
there. He was going to attract attention
wherever he went. The crowd knew he’d
heard what was being said. The crowd
wanted him to say something. But he
didn’t speak up for the woman. He didn’t
jump to her defense, fighting and refuting the charges against her. He stooped down. He began writing in the dirt. Now, much of this was being staged for Jesus’
sake to begin with. The whole point was to get him to respond. So as he stooped down, he drew even more of
their attention away from the woman and onto himself. As he continued to say nothing, they
continued to demand a response.
So finally, he
stood up. He raised himself up on the
woman’s behalf. He didn’t say much. This wasn’t one of his long, teaching
sermons. He simply stood and said,
“Sure. Let’s stone her. But let’s have the person who hasn’t sinned
cast the first stone.” And with that, he
stooped back down.
One by one, her
accusers dropped their stones. Surely
many of them were angry.
Frustrated. Hopefully some felt
rightly convicted. But none of them
could say anything in response. Surely
none of them could claim the right to throw.
And so they left. They all left
until only Jesus remained. The one who was without sin. The one who had the right more than anyone to
serve as this woman’s executioner. But
he didn’t move to do her any harm. He
asked her a question. “Where did they all
go? Where are your accusers?”
Now, none of us
have faced a situation like the woman’s.
None of us have faced being put to death for our most shameful, most
embarrassing failure. But we’ve all felt
the burning shame, all felt the crushing guilt that comes from condemning
voices.
Satan loves to
come after us with accusations, with condemnations. He loves to point out our faults, amplify our
weaknesses, highlight our mistakes.
Sometimes he speaks through the mouths of others. But other times, perhaps even more viciously,
he attacks us with the voices we hear only in our own heads.
“You’re not good
enough. Who do you think you are? Do you think that no one is going to find
out? Why would anyone ever love
you? You’re a failure. You’ve always been a failure. You’ll always be a failure. So just give
up. Because there’s no point.”
Over and over and
over the accuser comes at you. He never
relents. His only goal is to bring you
down. Destroy you. He wants to steal your hope. He wants to extinguish your joy. He wants you broken with despair. His goal is your death.
And like the
woman, we are guilty. All the sins he accuses us of. All the failings he points out…he’s
right. When it comes to the standards of
the only judge that matters, we are nothing but a bunch of screw ups. Our sin rightly earns us condemnation. And we can’t deny it. We even confess that exact thing on a regular
basis. “We confess that we are by nature
sinful and unclean. We have sinned
against you in thought, word, and deed.
By what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole
heart. We have not loved our neighbors
as ourselves. We justly deserve your
present and eternal punishment.”
There’s no way
around it. There’s no denying it. We are guilty of sin. And the price of our sin is death. No ifs, ands, or buts.
But this is the
grace of Christ. He does not allow Satan
to have the final word. As he did for
the woman caught in adultery, Jesus has acted on your behalf. The Son of God stooped down for you. Stooped down to become man, born of a virgin
in Bethlehem. Stooped down to become
best friends with tax collectors and uneducated fishermen. Stooped down to touch lepers and to eat with
outcasts. Stooped down to allow evil men
to beat him and spit on him. Stooped
down low enough for nails to be driven into his hands and feet.
He stooped down so
low that others raised him up. Raised
him high upon the cross. There he did
more than drive accusers away guilty of their own sinfulness. There he actually took your sins upon his
shoulders. He took your punishment upon
himself. He paid the price your sins
deserved. He descended into hell to
declare his victory over Satan, and then he rose once again. He stood no longer dead, but alive, having
conquered sin and death so that sinners may have life. And as he stands now before the throne of his
Father in heaven, silencing the accusations that Satan continues to throw
against God’s people.
I think I’ve said
before that the end of Romans 8 is one of, if not my absolute favorite passages
in Scripture. It’s a passage I point to
again and again when people are feeling the weight and guilt of their sin. “If God is for us, who can be against
us? Who will bring any charge against
God’s elect? Who is the one who
condemns?”
Satan, the world,
our own sinful natures…all of them are happy to work against us. All are happy to charge us with all sorts of
wrongdoing. All are eager to work for
our condemnation. But by grace, by the
working of Christ, on account of the one who once stooped down on behalf of a
woman caught in adultery…they have no power.
Christ answers any and all charges by pointing to his cross and the
empty tomb. Because of his stooping down
you are no longer who Satan accuses you of being. You are no longer a sinner deserving only
death and hell. You are now a saint,
clothed in the glory and righteousness of the Son.
The only one who
has the power and authority to condemn us is the one who died so that we might
have life. So what do we have to
fear? We are more than conquerors
through him who loved us. And nothing
can ever separate us from his love.
Satan continues to
assault us with accusations. We continue
to feel guilt and shame for our sin. But
as long as we don’t become slaves to that guilt, as long as we don’t allow that
guilt to consume us and lead us to despair, it’s not a bad thing. It’s good, necessary even, for children of
God to feel guilty for their sin.
Because that guilt leads us to desire change. We long always to cast off our old sinful
selves and walk in the newness of life.
That guilt also leads us to confess our sins to God, to ask his
forgiveness, and to rejoice in knowing he bestows it freely and abundantly.
Who are you going
to listen to? Whose voice, whose words
are you going to believe? The Accuser,
or the Advocate?
You are guilty,
but Christ has paid the price for your sin.
Your accuser seeks to bring you down and condemn you, but your Advocate
washes you in his blood, lifts you up, and declares you pure as snow. Your accuser has been driven away. He has been silenced. You have been set free. Rise. Go. And
sin no more, living with the joy of knowing the grace that comes from the God
who stoops. Amen.
