“Teacher, this woman was caught
in the very act of committing adultery.
Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
So what do you say?”
It was amazing the lengths to which the scribes and Pharisees went in order to ensnare Jesus in their trap. They did not particularly care about the sanctity of marriage, but used the law as an excuse to find fault with Jesus. The women, whose dignity, as one created in the image of God, they clearly did not recognize, was merely acceptable collateral damage as far as they were concerned. Jesus, who was the bridegroom of Israel, did care deeply about marriage. He himself had given the commandment that prohibited adultery. But he did so precisely because of how adultery tarnished the dignity of his creatures and made them less than they were meant to be. Offenses against the dignity of marriage made those guilty of them less capable, not only of human love, but of relationship with Jesus. But since it was precisely this relationship that he desired above all else his instinctive response to guilt was not first judgment, but rather mercy. The Pharisees assumed that Jesus might endorse stoning the woman, thus bringing upon himself the wrath of the Romans, who reserved to themselves the right to administer the death penalty. Or else they thought he would set mercy against the Mosaic law, contradicting the punishment Moses commanded. But he did neither.
“Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her.”
They would likely have seen themselves as without sin, just as Paul once saw himself, saying "as to righteousness under the law, blameless" (see Philippians 3:6). But they also knew that Jesus did not consider them to be faultless. Thus he was not actually suggesting any of them could rightly throw a stone. But there was more. What they would have desired to do at that point was almost certainly to stone the woman themselves, in order to uphold their public image of righteousness. But they could not, since it would upset the Roman authorities. They were thus made to look like sinners in the eyes of the crowd. They had been caught in the trap they themselves set.
They set a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my way, but they have fallen into it themselves (see Psalm 57:6).
The scribes and the Pharisees were thus humiliated and went away with no ability to respond. But what of the woman, whom they had used and abused for their own ends? She was in fact guilty. And Jesus was in fact without sin. He was qualified to throw a stone if he chose. But the one person who could see clearly enough to be eligible to issue forth punishment instead chose to show mercy. There was no board in the eye of Jesus and so he was able to see clearly enough to actually help this sister who had been wounded by her sin. The Pharisees and the scribes were the opposite, since their own vision was so impaired they caused damage around themselves wherever they turned. They suffered precisely the sort of darkening of vision described in our first reading.
They suppressed their consciences;
they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven,
and did not keep in mind just judgments.
We are not without sin ourselves, since, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (see First John 1:8). But this need not be the end of our story as long as we continue to listen to our consciences and look to heaven. We can discover, like both Susanna, who was innocent, but also like the woman caught in adultery, that, "saves those who hope in him".
Bob Fitts - He Will Come And Save You
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