Stage 1: Getting To Know Jesus Stage 1: Getting To Know Jesus Stage 1: Getting To Know Jesus

“This is wrong! This is wrong! This is wrong! No, it’s not, no, it’s not, no, it’s not,” she argued with herself quietly as she sneaked to the back of this man’s house in the pitch of the night. A man who is not her husband. They had been flirting with each other for the past few weeks, and they made sure nobody saw. She was a married woman, of course. 

When the invitation came for the rendezvous, she was extremely nervous, excited, and afraid at the same time. This is something that could get her killed, but maybe she would feel something she hasn’t felt in a long time. She had never been with another man, she nervously thought. “If I cross the doorway of his house, there is no going back,” she said as she took one deep breath and stepped into the house. 

As she watched him sleep, she wondered if she could keep this up. She is falling for this man, but he is not her husband. If these hookups continued, it would be very hard to hide. It is a small town, and everyone knows everybody’s business. At any moment, someone could find out, and that is it; she is dead! She knows this is wrong, but she wants to continue the relationship. The sun will come up soon, and she’s got to get home while it is still dark. She gets up to get dressed, and suddenly the door to the house bursts open. Three men dressed in religious garbs barge into the room, yelling and quickly approaching her. She screams as she grabs a sheet to cover herself, and she knows that she will be dead soon.

Cheating on your spouse is a painful act today that breaks up countless families but think about 2,000 years ago. Not only did the families break up, but the ones doing the cheating were required by Jewish law to be stoned to death. The act of being stoned, not that kind of stoned, to death was exactly what it sounds like: people picking up stones and throwing them at the person until they were dead. Painful way to die, to say the least. So, to say this unnamed lady in John 8 was freaking out is an understatement because she knows the law and what comes next after being caught cheating.

The sun was rising as the three men dragged her to the temple, where a group of men was already gathering. She was trying her best to keep herself covered up; if she was going to die, at least she could try to protect the little dignity that she had left. The men stopped her in the middle of the crowd of men, and she was desperately looking for a friendly face, but none could be found.

Suddenly, the religious leaders start telling this man everything that she had done. It was as if they were watching her the entire time. Had she been set up? Was her lover in on the plot to kill her? Her mind snapped back to the present when this man dropped to the ground and began to write in the sand. “What is he doing?” she thought as her accusers grew louder and angrier, but the man continued to just write in the sand. The crowd started to pick up stones, and she closed her eyes because she knew what was coming next. After all, she was guilty. She had sex with a man who was not her husband, and she knew the law. DEATH! 

The crowd was at a fevered pitch when the man stood up from the ground. The group of angry men was silenced as this man started to speak.

“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Then, the man sat back down again and continued writing in the sand as the woman began to weep uncontrollably. At any second, she would feel the stones pelting her body, and soon she would be dead. A few seconds went by, and NOTHING. All she heard was the thud of the stones as the men were dropping them to the ground. She dared not open her eyes until it was once again silent. When she opened her eyes, she noticed the crowd was gone, but the man was still writing on the ground.

Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

 “No one, sir,” she said.

Scripture References: John 8:1-11