Jesus, A Whore, and Me

Besides the Gospel of the cross, if I had to pick one single story from the Bible to only read the rest of my life, this story would be a top contender. This is a story of love, of grace, of mercy, of truth, of forgiveness, of sacrifice, of hypocrisy, of sin, of life, of me, and most importantly, of Jesus.

The Adulteress Woman -- or for us today, the whore.

So there's a crowd. A big crowd of people and among them is Jesus. That's no coincidence He's there.
Because a group of scribes and Pharisee (aka. the uber religious folks of the time who love their rules and self-righteousness) enter the scene. Dragging a woman. Dragging a whore.

So this sounds harsh, right? To call her a whore. But she is an adulterer. Is that a better term? She slept with a married man. She's a cheater. A home wrecker. The other woman. Who reading this thinks cheating is okay? Who wants to be cheated on? Exactly. This isn't exactly the town's saint. She isn't their best friend right now.

Side note here: How would you feel being this woman? We all have sin. We all have secrets. This woman was caught in hers. And not only was she caught, she was being dragged like a dead animal in front of a large crowd with her sin practically stamped on her forehead. What if your sin was exposed in this sort of way? What if your darkest secret was revealed publicly? Just a thought.

But here are these religious guys who are literally dragging this woman to the crowd to humiliate her and give her punishment for her crime. For in this day, adultery is punishable by stoning. Stoning isn't a quick punishment. It hurts. And hurts for a long time. These men, by law, have the right to throw rocks at this woman in public until she dies. If that's by bleeding out, a head wound, or internal trauma, it doesn't matter. They keep going until she's dead.

There's still an ulterior motive going on here. They don't bring her to the crowd and just start throwing rocks like they could of. They ask Jesus a question. "The Law commands we stone such a woman. So what do you say?"

"So what do you say?"

They are trying to trap Jesus in His own words. Jesus basically has two obvious choices here. He can say stone her or He can say not to. He can either be the bad guy who wouldn't be seen as loving and living what He preaches, or He can disobey the law. Either way, He seems pretty screwed, right? The Pharisees thought so too. They thought they caught Him. They thought they had Him backed in a corner.

Good thing our God is bigger and way smarter.

Jesus answers them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone."

Gotcha.

And one by one, oldest to youngest, the stones are dropped. The men, ashamed, walk away. These are the religious men, and they were caught in their own trap set for Jesus. Instead of exposing the sin of this woman, their sin was exposed as well. But it doesn't end here.

"Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
"No one, Lord"
"Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

I'm one of those people who thinks Jesus smiled and did that a lot. And when I picture Him saying, "Where are your accusers?" He's got to be smiling or at least smirking. Because what comes next is life-changing.

"Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

Don't forget her crime. She's a whore. She probably ruined a marriage. Maybe many. And Jesus doesn't condemn her. That doesn't make what she did okay. Not at all. If He had simply forgiven her and left it at that, someone may assume that. Someone may assume that Jesus let's these things go. But He goes on to say, "Go and sin no more."

God doesn't love our sin. God hates sin. He hates sin so much that He knew something had to be done because us trying to fulfill the Law on our own just wasn't working. Us trying to meet this holy standard wasn't quite doing it. But Jesus can. God doesn't love us just the way we are. Because we are sin. God loves us IN SPITE of who we are. The world labeled this woman as a whore. God hated the sin in this woman. But oh, if you don't see the love He has for her in this story, you missed the point. Jesus spared her from death. He saved her. And later in this beautiful story, He saves me, too.

From the Pharisees. In public. When I should have been the one dragged out, He was. When I should have been the one humiliated by my sin, He was. When I should have been the one beaten, He was. When I should have been the one punished with death, He was. When I should have been condemned, He was.

So at the end of the day, me and that whore have a whole lot in common.


**this devotion had a lot of help from the awesome Chris Kuykendall's sermon at Camp Hope this weekend**