"Neither do I condemn you..."

“Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her.”

                                                              John 8:7

 

This is always a tough one for many people, myself very much included.  It seems to me that in the depths of our souls we still hear the echo of the call for true justice.  Somewhere in the core of our being there is a sense that the world is not as it was meant to be and that human beings ought to be something better than they are.  This is good in essence.

 

The problem arises out of our tainted and fallen human nature.  Being so firmly rooted in self-centeredness, we now have a knee-jerk reaction that prompts us to immediately look for all of the faults evident in everyone except ourselves.  We start shouting out for all the world to  hear as we list the sins of others.  We look feverishly for the nearest stone.

 

And then Christ does something amazing.  He slows everything down.  He resists the surging wave of wrath with his peaceful, yet firm and authoritative presence.  And then he asks that question we've pondered for 2,000 years.  But do we take his words to heart, or have we yet to do so?  And how long will we wait before we drop our stones and do a little soul-searching?