DAY 2: THE WOMAN CAUGHT IN ADULTERY

Slowly her mind drifted to that fateful afternoon when numerous men surrounded her house.

Wearing a red robe she had hurriedly put on as they banged the door, she and her lover were running frantically up and down the room trying to find a way of escape. One bang came at the door, then another until the door came crashing down. There stood men, about 20 of them, eyes bloodshot with rage.

“There they are”, a lanky looking man screamed.

The woman found herself being yanked by the arm, a slap on the face, a jolt in the back. Shoved and pushed from one side to the other until they got to the city center.

She looked around, her lover was nowhere to be found.

“Had he escaped?” “Had they let him go?”, she thought to herself.

“Where are they taking me?”

After numerous shoves, she was pushed one last time, her torso landing firmly on the hard ground, she flinched and touched her chest in pain. Lifting her eyes, she saw the mob. Armed stones ready to execute judgement, there was no trace of empathy or kindness, they were ready for blood. She scanned the crowd slowly, lifting her head cautiously and in shame as a convicted adulterer would. Rage, anger, disgust filled the eyes of the mob, then her eyes landed on Him.

He stood before her in plain clothes, no air of importance around him but he radiated a uniqueness she couldn't place.

“Rabbi, this woman was caught in the act of adultery, what should we do to her”, the lanky one asked, disrupting her thoughts.

The man looked at her and in His eyes she did not see judgement, she did not see condemnation. She saw something else, compassion. A feeling so foreign that she believed she had discerned wrongly. Her intuition was playing tricks on her.

The man bent and started writing some things into the sand. After what seemed like an eternity, He lifted his eyes to the heavens and drifted it back to the mob.

“Let he who has not sinned, cast the first stone”, he said finally and bowed his head to write some more.

The mob was startled. They looked at each other in surprise, murmured some words under their breaths not knowing how to react.

Thud.

The first stone fell to the ground, the lanky one quickly withdrew from the mob. Then another thud was heard, then another until there was no one left.

The man rose from his writing. He moved towards her, held her by the hand and helped her up.

“Woman, where are your accusers”

Trembling the woman replied, “they have left”

“Neither do I accuse you, go and sin no more”.

With this, he left.

There she stood in the city center, a convicted adulterer yet had escaped death because of this man she had never met.

Obtaining mercy when death was justified.

Her lover wherever he was, was not man enough to stand with her in this moment yet in this strange man’s eyes, she saw something she had never witnessed. In His compassion she could feel His love.

And she could bet that if dying for her was her only deliverance, he wouldn't hesitate.

Something he would do in a time soon to come.