Read­ing Time: 3 minutes

Introduction

This Sunday is the last Sunday of Lent, and the Church presents to us a beau­ti­ful pas­sage from the Gos­pel accord­ing to John. It is a story that clearly mani­fests the say­ing of Jesus found in Mat­thew 7:3 why do you see the speck of saw­dust in your brother’s eye while you do not notice, see or pay atten­tion to the plank in your own eye?” Last Sunday, we saw how the young­er son of the man in the par­able came to his senses and from thence, began his pro­cess of repent­ance and return to the source of life (Luke 15:17). In the Gos­pel read­ing of this Sunday, we have the Scribes and the Phar­isees, who have refused to come to their senses. They reject ret­ro­spec­tion and there­fore, find it dif­fi­cult to repent. Repent­ance demands that we look into ourselves.

Go and do….

To the ques­tion, “woman, where are they? Has no one con­demned you?” The woman answered “no one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I con­demn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again” (John 8:11). As Jesus indic­ated, he has not come for the self-acclaimed right­eous, but for those who admit they are sin­ners (cf. Mark 2:17). Jesus’ mis­sion was not to con­demn, rather, to call sin­ners to repent­ance. That he asked the woman to go does not mean he sup­ports his style of life. Abso­lutely no! To show his dis­ap­prov­al for her way of liv­ing, Jesus asked her to go and warned her not to sin again. The woman’s com­port­ment dur­ing through­out the nar­ra­tion shows she was not deny­ing com­mit­ting adul­tery. From her com­port­ment, Jesus must have noticed she was guilty and has shown remorse for her action. Jesus showed her mercy as a repent­ant sin­ner and asked her not to sin again. Those who truly repent are always for­giv­en by God.

Conclusion

The heart of this story lies in Jesus’ final words to the woman. Since none of the accusers had the cour­age to con­demn the woman, because they were not bet­ter than she, not even Jesus could con­demn her. There are at least four aspects of the story that mer­it par­tic­u­lar atten­tion. The first is Jesus’ words on the insist­ence of the Scribes and the Phar­isees that he say some­thing about the case they presen­ted to him. To them, Jesus said “let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). The second aspect is their reac­tion: “when the Scribes and the Phar­isees heard what Jesus said to them, that is, that any­one of them who is without sin should be the first to throw stone at the woman, they went away, one by one, begin­ning with the older ones” (John 8:7). The third aspect is Jesus’ words to the woman after the with­draw­al of her accusers “woman, where are they? Has no one con­demned you? No one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I con­demn you” (John 8:11a). The last and the found­a­tion of the entire epis­ode is Jesus’ final admon­i­tion to the woman and to every repent­ant sin­ner “go, and from now on do not sin again” (John 8:11b). Now comes the most import­ant part of the story: “go, and do not sin again.” FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 5^th Sunday of Lent © is found in vol. III pages 196–208. See also vol. I, pages 132–149. Happy reading! For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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