The anger that flashed in her eyes was like a lightning bolt as she stood there ashamed and humiliated, accused of being caught in adultery. She recognized her accusers as previous customers of her trade but was silent as to not be slapped in the face had she spoken. The anger was quickly replaced by a growing fear in the pit of her stomach as she knew what her judgment would be, death by stoning.
She had been dragged out of her home and was now on her knees before this crowd that had gathered. She knew all to well that it meant her time on this earth was about up. She tried to recognize the pain that she would soon experience as the stones would be thrown by her accusers was soon to be all too real. First, they would throw the stones to try to break her legs and her arms saving her head for last so she would feel every little pebble of pain for her sins. A sin that was so great that it was only punishable by death even if death came by the hands of those who had participated in her willing or unwilling sinfulness. They knew her.
She was a throw-away, something to be used and discarded as they had done so many times before only this was too be her last time. The crowd parted, as they half-dragged her, pushing her and shoved her to ground before a man who was sitting, to whom she had only seen from a distance before.
They, her accusers, said to the sitting man, "this woman was taken in adultery, in the act of adultery" and she felt that the sting of her past beginning to strike her heart and her very soul and something seemed to break in her. There was something different though about this man they had brought her to. She didn't feel the lustful gaze as she had from her accusers before. She didn't feel the evil desire and the urge to punish herself by sacrificing her body as she had done in times past because there was something so pure about this man. And while her accusers were awaiting his answers she felt the weight of her sins upon her soul and it dragged her to the earth because she knew that before death would come and she desperately needed to make things right with her God.
And as she lay there, her face to the hard, rocky ground covered by the mud of her tears as she heard them say "Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?" as she awaited the impact of the first stone. She was feeling that is what she deserved and even though the pain would be too much to bear, she felt death would release her from the pain inflicted on herself, and by others.
She was weeping now, her tears coming from years of abuse and blackened eyes that she had thought dried up long ago. She felt the man stand and strangely he kneeled down near her head and thru her weakness she raised her head up enough to see this pure man's finger begin to write upon the ground in the pool of her tears, as her accusers begin to grow impatient and louder in their accusations they were suddenly quieted as he spoke.
She had never heard a man speak so quietly and yet with so much authority. She laying there had never felt, in the presence of a man, what she felt coming from this man. It was if her entire past had been poured out of her, and she felt a pureness and innocence she had not felt in a long time come into her soul.
She hadn't felt like this since her mother would take her to the temple to pray as a child.
The man stood up and said,” Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone" and she tensed but didn't feel as had before. She was in the presence of someone who was greater than anybody she had known before. Maybe he was a king or a prince but even greater than that she felt clean and pure and no king or prince on this earth could have ever done that for her...
She felt the man kneel by her again and continue writing in her pooled tears, his finger dirty with tears and sand. And she lie there for what seemed her entire lifetime but different inside, and she felt the man stand and say to her, "Woman, where are thine accusers, has no man condemned thee?"
And from somewhere deep inside her soul a light begin to shine, and she trembling stood before her Lord, and said "No"....and these words would carry her the rest of her life when He said, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."
In life there will always be those who are ready to point our faults and failures out,but there is only One who can forgive us our sins. When we look at our life and sins we have commited or the sin that may have been forced upon us, I would never want my name or my sins written in the sand or have the rock in my hand. I would rather be the one at his feet finding forgiveness, I would rather be the standing in the need of prayer.
The truth is that everyone has sinned and come short of the Glory of God...
It's not our responsibility to identify the sinner but it is our responsibility to find forgiveness for ourselves in Him and it is our responsibility to tell others about the forgiveness we have found in Him...
One Woman said.."Come and See a Man"....He is the Light of this World...
John 8
12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life
Just a thought...
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