Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126:1-6
Philippians 3:8-14
John 8:1-11
Today the Lord says to us the
Scriptures, “I am doing something new.”
Indeed He is doing something new and He is inviting us to take part in it, and
to in fact be the main focus of that newness. “Remember not the events of the past,” He says, “the things of long ago consider not…. I put
water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink.”
Our Lord comes to invite us to drink of the water He has provided for us, but
not a simple water as we can find all around us but rather the water of His
Divine Mercy. Our Lord Jesus longs for us to drink deeply of that Mercy and to
find true life. And as we cannot have life without the sustenance of literal
water, so too are we unable to have real life without Mercy.
St. Paul in his letter to the
Philippians gives us a brief testimony of that life, as he had begun to embody
the calling of God to set aside the things of the past and look forward to the
future, where there is life and fullness of grace. In the Gospel we see that
touching account of what the encounter looks life.
As we draw near to Passion
Sunday, or Palm Sunday, next weekend, we hear in the Scriptures more about the
scribes and Pharisees trying to catch Jesus in a trap to bring Him to His
death. Today we hear yet another attempt and another supposedly perfect trap. They
bring before the Lord a woman caught in adultery. A woman. So often in the
Scriptures we hear names of people for specific events – Peter, Lazarus, Mary,
etc. – but here it is simply ‘a woman’, a generic title that permits us all to
place ourselves in the passage. It is no longer just a story about a person two
thousand years ago; it is my story and yours. We are the woman.
The scribes and Pharisees,
thirsty for the Blood of Christ to be shed, bring the woman in and set her in
the midst of all the people, then frame the question to Jesus whether she
should be stoned according to the Law or let free. To set her free was to break
the Jewish Law and lose all credibility as a teacher. To have her stoned
according to the Law was to break the Roman law and merit death. The trap has
now been set and this poor woman has been used as a tool to get at Christ. They
weren’t really concerned with her. But Christ was, and in escaping the trap,
turns to make her the center of attention so that she might come to know His
love for her.
When they first question the
Lord, he simply bends down and begins to draw in the dirt. Hoping to spring the
trap soon, they continue to press on Him to answer. So he stands to respond: Let the one among you who is without sin be
the first to throw a stone at her.” And one by one, beginning with the
elders they leave. The little detail included by St. John – that the elders
left first – shows us the wisdom of the elders in that they knew they could not
feign innocence, but were indeed sinners. And while some might have thought
themselves sinless, they surely couldn’t say so since those more righteous than
they had walked away. With the words of Jesus, the accusers became the accused
and rather than the woman being on trial, they each found themselves on trial.
They had become the woman in the center and walked away in shame.
Still the Lord draws quietly in
the dirt, until they have all left. He waits patiently because He knows what is
soon to take place in the heart of this woman standing before Him and wants to
draw her into that personal relationship with Him and the Father. He rises and
looks around to find that He is alone and simply inquires, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” With this the
woman could have responded “Why? What have I done wrong?” or “Why condemn just
me? Why not the man I was with?” or “Why does it matter? It’s not that serious
an act.” So often these are the things that happen within our hearts when we
are faced with our sinfulness. We get defensive and look everywhere but the
loving eyes of Jesus. But she didn’t. She simply responds, “No one” and in those words she admits her guilt. She knows that
she had sinned greatly and deserved death according to the Mosaic Law. And the
Lord looks lovingly at her and says simply, “Neither
do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.” Just as she
recognized her sin, Jesus also did. He knew the cost that he would soon have to
pay to forgive her sins. I suspect that as He was there quietly drawing in the
dirt that this thought was consuming His thoughts and the knowledge of her sin
was already at that moment causing pain in His priestly and paternal heart. For
that reason, when He responds, He doesn’t say “It’s not a big deal” or “You’re
free to go and continue to live as you wish.” Quite the opposite, He forgives
her sin but then challenges her to live in the future what she should have done
in the past. As she goes away, she does so with freedom and life, having been
sustained by the outpouring of the Divine Mercy of Jesus.
As I spoke about the value of
this anonymous woman helping us to enter into the Gospel, the reality is much
deeper than that. Rather than just a reflection on this encounter, Jesus Christ
has given us the opportunity through the Church to have this exact same
encounter in the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession. When we step into a
confessional, we see the priest before us, but the invisible reality we cannot
see is that it is actually Jesus working through that priest to enable this
encounter with Divine Mercy. It is Jesus there before us Who forgives our sins,
and sends us away free and full of life once more. “Neither do I condemn you”
becomes “I absolve you from your sins…” and we are sent away in peace, filled
with God’s grace to help us to sin no more.
My brothers and sisters in the Lord,
Jesus wants to do something new in our hearts. He wants to come to us in that
personal encounter like the woman in the Gospel that we might be freed from our
sins and given the Mercy of God that gives true life. Whether it’s been a week,
a month, a year, ten years, or more, the Lord is inviting you again today to
drink of His Mercy. Whatever fear might be in your heart, cast it out. If you
think it’s been too long, if you think your sins are too big, if you’ve had a
bad experience in the past, whatever might be keeping you from having that
encounter with Jesus, cast it out and come to experience the joy that Christ
seeks to bestow upon you. Let us not be afraid, but rather draw closer to
Jesus. Let us drink deeply of His Mercy and allow Him to say in our hearts
today “I am doing something new.”
No comments:
Post a Comment