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.” (John 8:1-11)People love a good show. And they love to see people brought down.
In this case, the viewers got to see a naked woman and a teacher of the law possibly humiliated by compassion.
They knew they had Jesus this time. The woman had been caught in the act of adultery. What was he going to do? If he said, let her go, they could call him a law breaker and the friend of law breakers. If he said stone her, they would say where is you compassion, man? Is not this woman a child of God?
Either way, Jesus was stuck.
Except of the fact that Jesus always came up with a third way: the way of God..
He said, okay, she is guilty. The perfect ones can start. And of course, no one would admit to being perfect, so they all left.
Jesus looks around and then at the woman and tells her to not sin any more. You can see him putting his cloak around her and sending her off.
The woman was humiliated. This was an occupational hazard with being a prostitute. Sooner of later, you would get caught. She never figured it like this, though. The man she was with ran away. They let him go, really. They didn’t need him. Just her.
They didn’t even give her time to get her clothes. They just manhandled her out into public naked and threw her on the ground in front of a bunch of leering men.
They were trying to look at her and be holy looking at the same time. The older ones had been hypocrites so long it wasn’t hard. But the younger men had trouble.
But Jesus looked at her, like he loved her, not like he wanted to use her.
She had never been looked at like that before.
After everyone had left, he came to her and gave her his cloak. She really didn’t know what to do.
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