Clean
The dawn had just broken. I lay in my bed dozing off
and on, trying again to shake the gnawing guilt of a night in sin’s bed
coverings. Who was the man breathing steadily beside me? I didn’t really know
him. All I knew was that he was not my husband and he was a momentary relief
from my aching emptiness. I was not like this as a child, but now I had fallen
so far into the darkness I didn’t even know which direction to grope towards to
escape it.
I had just reentered a numb
unconsciousness when I suddenly felt my coverings ripped from my bare figure. I
was then frightfully aware of the glaring, fierce eyes of several men, bearing
down on me as I tried to hide my naked frame in a bewildered state of shame. My
companion had fled, leaving me helpless and obviously losing all the tender
care he had professed in fleeting whispers.
Staring at the hoarde, dressed in
tasseled finery and angry countenances, I was struck with the realization that
my pallid face looked blankly up at the most prominent religious leaders of my
city. One of them ordered a man from the street to grab me and bring me to the
temple. Despite my best efforts to scramble away, the man entered and thrust me
from the bed to the floor in one swift movement. His rough hand clutched my arm
and lifted me with great force. I felt a bruise forming under each finger.
The men kept an impossible pace and
I stumbled badly several times and was dragged until I rose again. Finally, we
reached the temple where huge crowds had gathered to hear a man speak. By now,
loud whispers rose among the people as a clearing formed in the center of the
multitude. The men dropped me in the clearing. I was overcome by shame. No one
had bothered to clothe me and I knelt naked, filthy, and bleeding before
hundreds of eyes. I stared at the ground wildly, wondering if I would die of
pain and desperation. I was condemned. I knew my crime and it had carried me
straight to the pit of black humiliation to be damned.
After a moment, I heard one of the
leaders shout in hatred, “Adultery! Adultery! The law of Moses clearly condemns
her, Teacher. Teacher! Do you hear? She has been caught in the very act. The law
commands that we stone such a woman. What do you say we do?” Slowly, out of
curiosity and sheer terror, I looked up to see the face of the man who stood in
the center with me and was given the power to judge.
His face—His face was not angry. It
was peculiarly calm and he silently knelt down beside me, tranquil in a
surrounding crowd of fists, grasping the stones which would end my existence. I
no longer saw them nor did I hear their constant questioning or accusing. I was
staring at this man, this Teacher, as
they called Him. He was writing something in the dirt on which I crouched,
motionless. Then He looked at me. His stare was not that of violent hatred or
burning lust, both of which I knew too well. I did not first understand the
look, but I was very aware of the black depravity of my soul. My nakedness
revealed it and I knew my heart was laid bare before Him. For an instant, I
longed to turn away from such pure justice and terrible knowledge, but it was
the pain in His eyes that held my fixed gaze. Such hurt, such depth of
compassion I had never seen, nor have I ever seen it since. How could this
intense mercy be mingled with such omnipotence?
My
thoughts were interrupted as the man began to speak. The crowd gradually hushed
at his voice, and he stood again before them saying, “He who is without sin
among you, let him be the first to
throw a stone at her.” One simple statement; that was all He spoke. Again he
knelt down a small distance from my frozen, pain-wracked figure.
I
was waiting—bracing—to feel a thousand stones sting and pierce my bare flesh.
Blackness consumed me for a moment, but it was shattered with a quiet sound. I
opened my swollen eyes and glanced in its direction. Without lifting my head, I
saw, at the feet of the oldest scribe, a small cloud of dust. When it cleared,
there was a single stone on the ground dropped from the hand at his side. He
looked at my confused, stained face with indignant resignation and turned to
make his way out of the temple. I was captivated by this action when I began to
hear stones fall from the hands of the other elderly men who were mimicked by
the more zealous younger Pharisees.
I could not believe it. Did I still
sit here, alive and breathing when my guilt had justly wrapped its fingers
around my soul? I looked over my shoulder to see the Teacher still kneeling and
writing there in the dust. Straightening up again, he looked at me with those
eyes of awful purity. This was no Teacher. He was like no man or rabbi I had
ever known. His authority and His words were from the Most High. He said to me,
“Woman, did no one condemn you?” In guilt and amazement, I lowered my eyes,
looking into his face only to say, “No, my Lord.” I knew now this was the
Messiah, the very Son of God, the Very God of Very Gods incarnate.
With a look of swelling, determined
love, He spoke once more the sweetest words I have heard: “I do not condemn you
either. Go. From now on, sin no more.” Strangely, I rose and left Him. My heart
nearly broke with thankfulness and love as I pondered such forgiveness. I had
stared into the face of the living God and found mercy. No more condemnation.
No more guilt. No more loneliness. I was
clean.
“. . . Jesus went to the Mount of
Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people
came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the
Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in
the midst they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in the
act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such
women. So what do you say?’ This they said to test Him, that they might
have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with His
finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask Him, He stood up and
said to them, ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to
throw a stone at her.’ And once more He bent down and wrote on the ground. But
when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones,
and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before Him. Jesus stood up and
said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She
said, ‘No one, Lord." And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go,
and from now on sin no more.’” John
8:1-11
