Women and Christ

Meditation 10: A Jewish Woman and Jesus
John 8:1-12

Biblical scholars’ debate this story’s authenticity, but I find it a beautiful example of divine mercy and compassion in the face of religious hatred and contempt. The Jewish religious leaders are consumed with hatred for Jesus. Their religion became toxic and abusive, and for this woman, had deadly potential.

Jesus faced an impossible dilemma. According to Jewish religious law, the woman was in serious trouble. Adultery among married people merited death by stoning (Deuteronomy 22:22-24; Leviticus 20:10). If the woman was a betrothed virgin, she was to be executed by strangulation. The Mosaic Law required the execution of both parties (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22).

In this carefully planned trap, the hostile religious leaders tried to trick Jesus into giving an answer violating the Law of Moses and the existing Roman law. Roman law did not allow the Jews to carry out their death sentences without permission (John 18:31).

According to Jewish law, the witnesses were required to throw the first stones at the condemned person (Deuteronomy 17:7). Jesus defused the situation with these immortal words: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Jesus tenderly approaches the terrified, humiliated and dazed woman and he respectfully addresses her as a person of value and dignity by calling her, ‘dear woman,’ the same expression he used when speaking to his mother in John 2:4. In this dramatic teachable moment, he gives her spiritual instruction that changed the course of her life.

He refused to condemn her, rather, he ordered her to go home and live a new life. Jesus offered her compassion and forgiveness, not condemnation. He saw her as a person of value, not bait in a trap. Through this moment of spiritual conversation, she was forgiven and returned to her community and family, given a new chance at life. Jesus was indeed her Savior.

Prayer: “I look to You, O One Who Sees through me and my deceptions. You look upon my emptiness and fill me with encouragement and a deep, sustaining love. Seek me out in the wilderness of my struggle for survival, where my spirit longs for nurture and my heart for tenderness. O One Who Sees Me, look at me in our solitudes together, and let me be the one who sees Shalom when I look at You. Blessed be Thou, now and forever. Amen.” (WW p. 441)