The Resurrected Life: Shame to Forgiveness
John 8:1-11
It was a beautiful fall day in Jerusalem. The smell of falafel and hummus filled the air. It was the last day of the Sukkot. You know, the Festival of the Tabernacles, one of the seven major feasts in the Jewish Calendar. We had been camping all week in makeshift tents with thousands of our closest friends. People from all over had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem – from as far north as the Sea of Galilee to as far south as the Red Sea.
For eight days, we celebrated and remembered the miraculous protection God had provided for the children of Israel when they left Egypt. And we prayed for plentiful rain to come before the winter season, and an abundant harvest for the next year. The religious leaders had been teaching extensively on the spiritual significance of water all week long. It was to remind us to cultivate a spiritual longing, a spiritual thirst for God. Each morning, they would quote the prophet Jeremiah (17:12-13), who wrote:
“Lord, You are the hope of Israel;
all who forsake You will be put to shame.
Those who turn away from You will be written in the dust
because they have forsaken the Lord,
the spring of living water.”
On the eighth, and final, day of the feast, the priest poured a pitcher of water over the altar, shouting “Hosanna, Hosanna! God save us!” We called upon God to save us, by bringing rain for the crops, to sustain our physical needs for food and water.
It had been an interesting week, though. The Rabbis seemed tense. Now, if you don’t know about Rabbis, they all know each other. They know WHO follows who, and WHO teaches what. Even though they’re from different parts of the region, they aren’t strangers. They’ve grown up together, learned together, and led together. But the scuttlebutt this week was all about a Rabbi named Jesus.
They didn’t like what He was teaching. They were threatened by Him. And yesterday, He made a startling statement by turning the prophet Jeremiah’s words into a teaching about Himself. Jesus said:
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me,
as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
You could feel the tension in the air. The Pharisees began plotting against Jesus, wanting to entrap him.
So, there we were… eight days of worshipping God, celebrating the feast, living in tents, lots of wine flowing… some visited each other’s tents… some stumbled into the wrong tent… if you know what I mean… The Rabbis trolled the camping area, and found a woman in a man’s tent. And that man was NOT her husband. They drug her out of the tent, screaming that this woman had committed adultery! Why they didn’t drag out the man, too? Hmm.
A crowd gathered around as they announced this woman’s greatest sin. They were making a spectacle of themselves, yelling, laughing, grabbing stones to throw at her. And then, they called out to Jesus. “Hey, hey Rabbi! Teacher! Look!”
Jesus slowly sauntered over to the men yelling at the woman, and they pleaded their case:
“Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
You could see the disdain in Jesus’ eyes. Would He yell? Would He walk away? Would He call down Heaven’s army to smite the men? No. Jesus knelt down to the ground and wrote in the dirt. And you won’t believe what happened next!!
Well, good morning, Church! We’re in the midst of a sermon series entitled, “The Resurrected Life,” celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, His almighty power, and through our belief, inviting God to transform our minds and lives. In this Easter season, we’ve looked at how Christ’s love transforms our despair to hope. How His Resurrection Power transforms our sense of being lost to being found. And today, we’re tackling shame to forgiveness. I’m so thankful that Steven always gives me the easy ones!
The scripture lesson that Steven read earlier in the service comes from the Gospel of John, chapter 8. This story is about a woman. While it sounds like a modern day soap opera, complete with immoral activities, it’s also one of the most theologically significant passages of Scripture.
This specific story has always intrigued me. You see, I make lists:
· I keep an everyday to-do list,
· A weekly to-do list,
· A list of things I’ve learned over the last year,
· A list of my favorite books,
· My bucket list,
· But my favorite list may be: “Things I’m Going to Ask Jesus Upon Immediate Arrival into Heaven!”
At the top of that list is this question: Jesus, what in the world did You write in the dirt?
Not once, but twice, Jesus stooped and wrote on the ground with His finger. John included this detail in the passage for a reason, but left it a mystery for us to ponder. What, Jesus, what did You write?
Now, as you can imagine, I’ve been pondering this for years, and I have theories:
1) My first theory is what Jesus wrote the first time He knelt down, and more specifically what He may have written to the Pharisees;
2) The second theory is what Jesus might have written the second time He stooped down to the woman.
So, back to that cliffhanger story I left you at earlier… I want you to put yourself in the shoes of a Pharisee in Jerusalem…
You have spent your entire life teaching and upholding the Torah, the Jewish Laws found in the first five books of the Bible. This is a calling. You have memorized the entire Hebrew Scripture. You know the words of God, Moses, David, and all the prophets, inside and out. Every year, you host hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem to observe the festivals.
The tension at this eight-day Festival of the Tabernacles has been thick all week long. Anger is breeding between the Rabbis and Jesus. You’re at the pinnacle moment of the festival, pouring the water over the altar and declaring, “Hosanna, Hosanna! God save us!” And then, Jesus declares Himself as the Living Water! Is He calling Himself the Messiah?
As a Pharisee, you know what’s going on in those tents in the courtyard. Wine is flowing, and the people have been acting frivolously. This is the perfect opportunity to drag out one of those women who has stumbled into the wrong tent with the wrong man. After all, Leviticus chapter 20, verse 10 says, “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.” Sure, you’re only bringing out the woman, only taking a portion of the scripture and twisting it for your own agenda, but let’s see if we can trap Jesus:
“Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
Jesus saw the ruse right away. Instead of responding verbally, He stooped down and wrote in the dirt. What’s that He’s writing? Is that a list of names? Is He writing my name… and Rabbi Steven’s name… and David’s name… and Will’s name… and Allison’s name… It hits you like a ton of bricks…
Jeremiah chapter 17, verses 12-13 says:
…all who forsake you will be put to shame.
Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust
because they have forsaken the Lord,
the spring of living water.”
Is Jesus writing our names in the dust because we have forsaken the Lord? Can you imagine the moment of recognition for the Pharisees? I’m on the wrong side of this prophetic encounter with the Messiah! I have forsaken God! I’m the one in shame. I am being written in the dust. I came to entrap Jesus. But Jesus entrapped me.
You’re in a spiritual stupor. You’re dumbfounded. Jesus turned the tables on us.
We tried to bring shame, and now we are shamed in the worst possible way.
How often do we try to trap others or bring shame upon others, only to find that we are the shameful ones?
Now I want you to think of that woman. We don’t know her name. We don’t know anything about her except she’s a woman… caught in the act of adultery, dragged naked by force into a public gathering place, humiliated by her sin, separated from anyone who might protect her, judged and sentenced to death without trial by self-righteous leaders. The political and social resistance robbed this woman of her dignity and honor. She was no longer a person; she was only a pawn. And then, they placed her before the King of Kings, who is pure and holy.
Jesus continued listening to the mob, shaking His head. You can feel the courage and tenacity of Rabbi Jesus as He stood up and said:
“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now, and leave your life of sin.”
Jesus confronted the religious power structures of His day, and now turned to this woman… What did He write in the dirt this time? Let’s think about this.
The woman in the story was guilty. The corruption of the Pharisees did not make the woman any less guilty. Jesus did not excuse her sin by making excuses for her:
· He didn’t feel sorry for her bad childhood.
· He didn’t have pity over her poor life choices.
· He didn’t say, “Well, she just didn’t know any better.”
· He doesn't call what the woman did a personal choice that is just different than what He would prefer.
· He doesn't even ask who the man was with whom she was committing adultery, so the punishment would be fair.
Jesus is the Savior who identifies her actions as sinful, and then rescues her from her sin and shame. So, maybe, just maybe, He wrote the word, forgiven. He felt her shame. He felt her embarrassment. He loved her, even though she didn’t know Him.
The only one with the power and authority to condemn declared that He would not condemn her. Instead, He extended to her holy compassion, holy forgiveness. This compassion was not just a one-time pass that enabled her to continue her previous lifestyle. It was not a get out of jail free card, so she could continue playing the sin game. The compassion of Jesus gave her a new life.
She was not the lowest ranking member of society any more. She was no longer living by the standard of critics, who make arbitrary rules about a person's worth. She was a child of God, freed from the bondage of sin and society's ranking system, to walk in the Light of Jesus Christ.
Which leads me to my final thought… The last thing Jesus said to this woman was, “Go, and sin no more.” The Hebrew term for this phrase, or act, is teshuva.
T-E-S-H-U-V-A. This is a term for repentance, or atoning for sin. Judaism recognizes that everyone sins on occasion, but that people can stop or minimize those occasions in the future by repenting for past transgressions.
In Wesleyan theology, this is a similar concept of “justifying grace” and “sanctifying grace.” Jesus has justified us by His love and His grace. He has sealed that justification by His sacrifice on the cross. He simply asks us to accept our acceptance, to say “yes”, to our reconciliation with God. Jesus asks us to claim it as our own gift from Him - laying ourselves aside, not claiming any action on our part that "puts us right" with God. But instead recognizing that forgiveness and grace is a true undeserved gift from Jesus.
And then we move into sanctifying grace - that state in which we are in the process of becoming more and more holy, like Jesus. We put on the mind of Christ, moving on to perfection. And as we seek to be so connected to the vine of Christ, we begin to imitate and act like Christ. We grow in Christ's love until we, too, can love like Christ and are thus "sanctified."
Being sanctified is a lifelong and conscious process of becoming like Christ, until we are indeed like Him. Just as in the Hebrew teshuva, we, as sanctified believers learn from our past errors, and seek to walk with Christ, onward to holiness and perfection, rather than live in sin and darkness.
So then maybe, just maybe, what Jesus wrote in the dirt was the Hebrew term, teshuva.
Perhaps Jesus wrote this to command the woman to stop the willful, sinful act that she was committing… We cannot live into teshuva if we continue to actively engage in the sin we know is wrong and harmful. Repentance is not just saying “I’m sorry”, confessing to God, and being forgiven… Of course, this is part of it. But teshuva, repentance calls for more. It calls upon us to confess to the Lord. And it calls us to confess the sin to the one you hurt the most AND restore the relationship.
What Jesus is saying to the woman here, is to go back, confess to your husband, restore the relationship, restore the covenant of marriage that you have damaged, restore the family, and restore this damage of sin that you’ve done.
And above all, change your behavior, and don’t do it anymore! Teshuva.
Friends, if we are honest with God and ourselves, we have all had times in our lives when we were Pharisees. We’ve tried to shame others. We’ve tried to cheat others. We’ve tried to elevate ourselves above others.
And if we’re honest, too, we’ve been the woman. We’ve been caught in sinful acts. We’ve been shamed and embarrassed by our behavior and actions.
While we don’t know what Jesus wrote in the dirt, we do know these truths:
· When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, when we no longer forsake Him, we place our sin and shame at the foot of His Cross, where He takes it on Himself.
· And when we confess our sins with a humble heart, He is faithful and just and forgives our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
· And when we are forgiven by Christ, may we, too, go to our neighbors, our friends, and our loved ones, and restore the relationships we have harmed.
May we live our lives transformed from shame to forgiveness. And may we commit to teshuva, where we, too, are called to “Go, and sin no more.”
The scripture lesson that Steven read earlier in the service comes from the Gospel of John, chapter 8. This story is about a woman. While it sounds like a modern day soap opera, complete with immoral activities, it’s also one of the most theologically significant passages of Scripture.
This specific story has always intrigued me. You see, I make lists:
· I keep an everyday to-do list,
· A weekly to-do list,
· A list of things I’ve learned over the last year,
· A list of my favorite books,
· My bucket list,
· But my favorite list may be: “Things I’m Going to Ask Jesus Upon Immediate Arrival into Heaven!”
At the top of that list is this question: Jesus, what in the world did You write in the dirt?
Not once, but twice, Jesus stooped and wrote on the ground with His finger. John included this detail in the passage for a reason, but left it a mystery for us to ponder. What, Jesus, what did You write?
Now, as you can imagine, I’ve been pondering this for years, and I have theories:
1) My first theory is what Jesus wrote the first time He knelt down, and more specifically what He may have written to the Pharisees;
2) The second theory is what Jesus might have written the second time He stooped down to the woman.
So, back to that cliffhanger story I left you at earlier… I want you to put yourself in the shoes of a Pharisee in Jerusalem…
You have spent your entire life teaching and upholding the Torah, the Jewish Laws found in the first five books of the Bible. This is a calling. You have memorized the entire Hebrew Scripture. You know the words of God, Moses, David, and all the prophets, inside and out. Every year, you host hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem to observe the festivals.
The tension at this eight-day Festival of the Tabernacles has been thick all week long. Anger is breeding between the Rabbis and Jesus. You’re at the pinnacle moment of the festival, pouring the water over the altar and declaring, “Hosanna, Hosanna! God save us!” And then, Jesus declares Himself as the Living Water! Is He calling Himself the Messiah?
As a Pharisee, you know what’s going on in those tents in the courtyard. Wine is flowing, and the people have been acting frivolously. This is the perfect opportunity to drag out one of those women who has stumbled into the wrong tent with the wrong man. After all, Leviticus chapter 20, verse 10 says, “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.” Sure, you’re only bringing out the woman, only taking a portion of the scripture and twisting it for your own agenda, but let’s see if we can trap Jesus:
“Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
Jesus saw the ruse right away. Instead of responding verbally, He stooped down and wrote in the dirt. What’s that He’s writing? Is that a list of names? Is He writing my name… and Rabbi Steven’s name… and David’s name… and Will’s name… and Allison’s name… It hits you like a ton of bricks…
Jeremiah chapter 17, verses 12-13 says:
…all who forsake you will be put to shame.
Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust
because they have forsaken the Lord,
the spring of living water.”
Is Jesus writing our names in the dust because we have forsaken the Lord? Can you imagine the moment of recognition for the Pharisees? I’m on the wrong side of this prophetic encounter with the Messiah! I have forsaken God! I’m the one in shame. I am being written in the dust. I came to entrap Jesus. But Jesus entrapped me.
You’re in a spiritual stupor. You’re dumbfounded. Jesus turned the tables on us.
We tried to bring shame, and now we are shamed in the worst possible way.
How often do we try to trap others or bring shame upon others, only to find that we are the shameful ones?
Now I want you to think of that woman. We don’t know her name. We don’t know anything about her except she’s a woman… caught in the act of adultery, dragged naked by force into a public gathering place, humiliated by her sin, separated from anyone who might protect her, judged and sentenced to death without trial by self-righteous leaders. The political and social resistance robbed this woman of her dignity and honor. She was no longer a person; she was only a pawn. And then, they placed her before the King of Kings, who is pure and holy.
Jesus continued listening to the mob, shaking His head. You can feel the courage and tenacity of Rabbi Jesus as He stood up and said:
“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now, and leave your life of sin.”
Jesus confronted the religious power structures of His day, and now turned to this woman… What did He write in the dirt this time? Let’s think about this.
The woman in the story was guilty. The corruption of the Pharisees did not make the woman any less guilty. Jesus did not excuse her sin by making excuses for her:
· He didn’t feel sorry for her bad childhood.
· He didn’t have pity over her poor life choices.
· He didn’t say, “Well, she just didn’t know any better.”
· He doesn't call what the woman did a personal choice that is just different than what He would prefer.
· He doesn't even ask who the man was with whom she was committing adultery, so the punishment would be fair.
Jesus is the Savior who identifies her actions as sinful, and then rescues her from her sin and shame. So, maybe, just maybe, He wrote the word, forgiven. He felt her shame. He felt her embarrassment. He loved her, even though she didn’t know Him.
The only one with the power and authority to condemn declared that He would not condemn her. Instead, He extended to her holy compassion, holy forgiveness. This compassion was not just a one-time pass that enabled her to continue her previous lifestyle. It was not a get out of jail free card, so she could continue playing the sin game. The compassion of Jesus gave her a new life.
She was not the lowest ranking member of society any more. She was no longer living by the standard of critics, who make arbitrary rules about a person's worth. She was a child of God, freed from the bondage of sin and society's ranking system, to walk in the Light of Jesus Christ.
Which leads me to my final thought… The last thing Jesus said to this woman was, “Go, and sin no more.” The Hebrew term for this phrase, or act, is teshuva.
T-E-S-H-U-V-A. This is a term for repentance, or atoning for sin. Judaism recognizes that everyone sins on occasion, but that people can stop or minimize those occasions in the future by repenting for past transgressions.
In Wesleyan theology, this is a similar concept of “justifying grace” and “sanctifying grace.” Jesus has justified us by His love and His grace. He has sealed that justification by His sacrifice on the cross. He simply asks us to accept our acceptance, to say “yes”, to our reconciliation with God. Jesus asks us to claim it as our own gift from Him - laying ourselves aside, not claiming any action on our part that "puts us right" with God. But instead recognizing that forgiveness and grace is a true undeserved gift from Jesus.
And then we move into sanctifying grace - that state in which we are in the process of becoming more and more holy, like Jesus. We put on the mind of Christ, moving on to perfection. And as we seek to be so connected to the vine of Christ, we begin to imitate and act like Christ. We grow in Christ's love until we, too, can love like Christ and are thus "sanctified."
Being sanctified is a lifelong and conscious process of becoming like Christ, until we are indeed like Him. Just as in the Hebrew teshuva, we, as sanctified believers learn from our past errors, and seek to walk with Christ, onward to holiness and perfection, rather than live in sin and darkness.
So then maybe, just maybe, what Jesus wrote in the dirt was the Hebrew term, teshuva.
Perhaps Jesus wrote this to command the woman to stop the willful, sinful act that she was committing… We cannot live into teshuva if we continue to actively engage in the sin we know is wrong and harmful. Repentance is not just saying “I’m sorry”, confessing to God, and being forgiven… Of course, this is part of it. But teshuva, repentance calls for more. It calls upon us to confess to the Lord. And it calls us to confess the sin to the one you hurt the most AND restore the relationship.
What Jesus is saying to the woman here, is to go back, confess to your husband, restore the relationship, restore the covenant of marriage that you have damaged, restore the family, and restore this damage of sin that you’ve done.
And above all, change your behavior, and don’t do it anymore! Teshuva.
Friends, if we are honest with God and ourselves, we have all had times in our lives when we were Pharisees. We’ve tried to shame others. We’ve tried to cheat others. We’ve tried to elevate ourselves above others.
And if we’re honest, too, we’ve been the woman. We’ve been caught in sinful acts. We’ve been shamed and embarrassed by our behavior and actions.
While we don’t know what Jesus wrote in the dirt, we do know these truths:
· When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, when we no longer forsake Him, we place our sin and shame at the foot of His Cross, where He takes it on Himself.
· And when we confess our sins with a humble heart, He is faithful and just and forgives our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
· And when we are forgiven by Christ, may we, too, go to our neighbors, our friends, and our loved ones, and restore the relationships we have harmed.
May we live our lives transformed from shame to forgiveness. And may we commit to teshuva, where we, too, are called to “Go, and sin no more.”
O Lord, You have forgiven our sins. There is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. We confess that there are times when we have been critical of others, forgetting that our own sins were painful and cruel, but by Your grace we have been forgiven. Lord, we want to live a life that is pleasing to You. We pray that because of Your new-life within us, we will display Your grace and love towards others, in the same way that You show Your grace and love towards us.
Amen and amen.
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