So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:18
Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Matthew 22:37-40
I often wonder if these three verses should be hung above my coffee maker, so that I can be reminded each morning of God's commands to love and of his concern with how we treat one another. My simple solution was to put a few Scrabble tiles on a ledge that spells out "EVERYONE". It's my shorthand for remembering that even my thoughts about "others" matter in the Kingdom of God. It's not necessarily a nod to success in reciprocity – as our secular culture may consider it – but it's a mandate to love. It's a command for compassion.
In the story originally recorded in John 8, we find Jesus being tested by the Pharisees, who condemn His teachings as false, wanting to catch Him in a crime (punishable by Rome). This was a story in which the charge of self-reflection spared a woman's life. Dragged into a crowd at dawn to face ridicule and possible death, a woman came face to face with the compassion of Jesus. He wasn't simply concerned about evading a religious snare; He was concerned with the curse of sin destroying His creation.
Sin is awfully gross when it brings God's image bearers into discord, hatred, and cruel intent; but Jesus does two very meaningful things in the story that have great applications for us today. The first is that he calls out the hypocrisy in the crowd by writing in the dirt. Without speaking the names and sins of the men present; a possible scenario is that he wrote their names and sins in the dirt for all to see. As each man dropped his stone and left from conviction or public scrutiny; Jesus made a way for even their sins to blow away in the wind.
And then Jesus addressed the woman:
"Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
"No one, sir," she said.
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin." John 8:10-11
Jesus doesn't condemn the woman even though His name wasn't written in sand. And yet, Jesus loves her too much to not address her sin as well. His judgment is rooted in rescue – not just from her possible death but from a life of death. This overall message of John 8 isn't just about treating others how you want to be treated; it's about the Creator of the universe, looking at His beloved children, and showing absolute compassion.
Now, it is not known if she left her "life of sin". Her circumstances might have been all she knew as a path of existence. Additionally, if a first century Jewish woman – discovered in the economically complicated (and possibly legal) web of prostitution – might have almost no means of successfully leaving her "sin". I'm not even sure the story hinges on her response. What it does point to, is the heart of Jesus. In the song, "As You Find Me" by Hillsong; there is a line that goes:
"Somehow You [Jesus] love me as You find me"
And being sung over and over in the chorus it reminds us that God's grace is an incredible gift.
But then the bridge adds to the reflection:
"Your love's too good to leave me here…"
His love is too good to leave us in the mess we find ourselves in. For the religious leaders who were bent on getting Him killed, he called out their sin in the sand. For the woman he saved from stones, he commands her to a new (maybe harder) path that leads to real life. What is Jesus calling you to today? Is there a stone you need to drop or a path you need to stop traveling? Listen to this song as you spend time with our compassionate Savior.
by Kris Thulson
