While passing
through an intersection one evening, a small car hit my SUV on the driver side.
For a brief moment which seemed like an
eternity, my life flashed before my eyes. The impact of the collision flipped
my SUV over and then back upright 20 feet down the road. Thankfully, I walked away from the accident
unscratched and pain free.
We might
find ourselves in the midst of an unexpected collision, often surprised by a
life-altering impact. In the eighth
chapter of John’s gospel, we discover an adulterous woman who was also impacted
by a major collision, a collision with God’s forgiving grace.
The Scribes
and Pharisees brought a woman caught in the act of adultery before Christ in
the temple. They attempted to test
Christ, wondering if He would either uphold or compromise Moses’ lawful
instruction to immediately stone her.
Christ shifts the attention from the adulterous woman to squarely upon
the religious accusers. His actions
seemingly exposed their pious attitudes, quick to judge the shortcomings of
others who have neglected to live perfect, righteous lives. He also exposed their self-imposed positions
as jurors of morality apart from God’s authoritative judgment.
Christ
responded to the woman’s accusers by stooping down to write on the ground with
His finger on two occasions. I believe
there is a correlation between Christ’s actions and the recording of the Ten
Commandments found in the book of Exodus.
In Exodus, God twice wrote the Ten Commandments with His own hand, a
second time following a display of sinful disobedience from the
Israelites. On both occasions, these
tablets were given to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Exodus 32:16 states, “The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was
God’s writing engraved on the tablets.”
Christ
demonstrated that only He was able to judge this woman for her actions. Unfortunately, the religious leaders failed
to recognize Christ as the same law maker who previously wrote out the
commandments by hand before Moses.
Christ then proceeded to diffuse their judgmental attitudes by stating
that the one who was without sin should cast the first stone. Upon acknowledgment of their own sin, they
left the accused woman alone with Christ.
At the
conclusion, Christ is left alone with this accused woman in the midst of the
above aforementioned divine collision.
Surprisingly, she was personally impacted by the grace of God. By choosing not to condemn her, Christ
emphatically demonstrated Himself not only as the law giver, but also the grace
giver. He displayed the forgiving grace
to this woman which He continuously offers to us today. A scripture which best illustrates this
point is John 1:17, “For the law was given through Moses;
grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.”
My life was
changed that eventful evening due to the auto collision. I am thankful for God’s hand of protection,
sparing me from pain and tragedy. The
adulterous woman’s life was also changed after being deeply impacted by
Christ’s grace. I imagine she lived
with a grateful heart after meeting the grace giver. May we reflect everyday on Christ’s
forgiving grace.
