David Bahn – Reflections

John 8:9 (NLT) See the full text below.

When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman.

The fullest expression of the Kingdom of God is not a gathering of worshipers, nor religious activity. It is grace and truth, mercy and justice, people living in fellowship with God. This becomes clear throughout Jesus’ ministry, and is on vivid display here in this encounter with the woman caught in adultery and her accusers. She is discovering what it means to be in fellowship with God as Jesus interacts with her and she with him. She is experiencing mercy and justice as the people who want to stone her drop their stones and Jesus declares that he does not condemn her.
There has been some conjecture as to what Jesus wrote when he bent down and wrote in the dirt. Some have said he was writing out the Ten Commandments. Others suggest that he was writing out the sins of the people who had gathered there to condemn this woman. Others have said he was writing a question: “Where is the man?” Perhaps he was just doodling in the dirt – writing nothing at all.
The fact is we do not know what Jesus was writing in the dirt. We do know, however, that the result of his presence in the encounter ultimately changes everything. The mob disperses, one by one, unable to claim to be without sin. The woman and Jesus are left, face to face, and she goes away safe and free with Jesus’ word of admonition: Go and sin no more. The stones have gone unused.
Jesus’ agenda of ministry was not to gather a crowd, but to seek and save the lost. Once they had encountered Jesus, people went their way with a new heart, a fresh understanding, and a spirit reborn to a whole new way of living. Too often the crowds wanted to make Jesus a king for their own purposes. Too seldom did they simply want to learn about the Kingdom of God and how God rules all of life.
Here we see the Kingdom of God, but not in the gathering of a crowd. That is yet to come – on the great Last Day, when all people will be gathered before Jesus and he will judge the living and the dead. That is yet to come later as the church is called together and gathered for a time – as the first order before the sending/scattering that expands the reign of God into the world.
So in our daily lives: we are to have gathered with other believers so that we may take the reign of Christ with us into the world. Today is meant to be a time of God’s presence and influence in the world through those who call him Lord. It may be that you will have come away from an encounter with Jesus by which you drop your stones and forgive your neighbor. It may be that you have experienced the fresh washing of the grace and forgiveness of God and you are going on your way, sinning no more. It may be that you were watching some spectacle and decided that there are better things to do with your attention than feed your prurient interests in pursuit of the latest voyeuristic thrill. However you face the day, be assured that our calling as followers of Jesus Christ is to live under him in his kingdom and serve him now and forever. That’s why we have been gathered and scattered.

John 8:1-11 (NLT)

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”