Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you? John 8:10 (MSG)
When We Love – Written In Dust Series – Part 7
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7
It was the yelling that woke him.
Tangled in sheets, holding his throbbing head – surely twice its normal size – he cursed out loud the men who thought to yell in the early morn was a good idea. He unwound himself from the makeshift bed, stood up, a little shaky at first, and followed the voices out of his tent, but not before he made sure he was properly clothed. Lucky he checked.
He walked the streets as the early morning sun lit up the air around him, dust drifting through it like tiny stars set ablaze. He was meant to be at temple himself, being the final day of the Feast. But he and his friends had celebrated long into the night, more than other years, he was sure. The wine was flowing, and they were careful not to reject the pourer's generosity.
He turned the corner and found the source of the sound: a crowd had gathered but was so tightly knit, he had to press up into it to see what all the fuss was about.
As he strained over shoulders and heads, he saw the focus of the crowd's attention. He gasped and frantically sought out the reason she was kneeling in the dirt. And then, he saw the stones in their hands.
And he knew.
What little he had recovered of his cognitive function on the walk to the temple immediately left him. The bee’s in his head grew louder, those next to him became trees swaying in the breeze as his vision blurred. Bile burnt the back of his throat as it crept up to his mouth.
He shook his head, shook his senses back to attention. He couldn’t bear to watch, but couldn’t bear to leave, either.
“Teacher, we caught this woman in the very act of adultery. Doesn’t Moses’ Law command us to stone to death a woman like this? Tell us, what do you say we should do with her?”
He was going to be sick. He’d heard those words before. Only hours ago. In the twilight drunk on celebration and wine, they whispered to him, encouraging him to seize the moment and the woman he was sitting next to. Too close. And yet, not close enough.
He should be standing next to her now. That’s what the law really demanded. He should be with her, ready to face the stones and the judgment alongside her.
Something else must be going on, he thought. Holding his breath, he waited to hear what the man they had directed their question to would say. He had been too focused on her to see who held the crowd's attention.
“Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”
He looked and saw the Rabbi called Jesus, a flicker in his eye, bend to the ground. He formed a point with his finger and began to write in the dust.
A collective inhale sucked the audacity out of the woman’s accusers as the man called Jesus kept writing his silent, dusty scripture.
They had been praying over this dust all week, that it would be blessed, that it would be kissed with water and deliver a harvest so bountiful that there would be an abundance of food in the coming months. And today? They demanded life be taken upon this dust for no other reason than to trap the man who was meant to be either a troublemaker or perhaps the one they had been waiting all these years.
The man realized he had been used. So had she, even more so. Pawns in a twisted, disgusting power play.
The words rose up out of the dust and compelled all to leave.
One by one, the men who had circled around her, turned and walked away. All you could hear were stones thudding into the earth.
Not one of his friends – if they were that – looked at him as they walked by. Not one. Their eyes stayed fixed on the dust at their feet. He didn’t blame them. He could barely face himself let alone the scene unfolding before him.
The last thing he saw was Jesus rising from the dust to look her full in her tear stained face. And as he turned to leave, he heard:
“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.”
In some strange, inexplicable way, he knew those words were meant for him, too.
Written by Lizzy Milani
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