The woman caught in adultery

Today's Gospel reading is a Biblical story that most Catholics already know by heart; it's about a woman caught in adultery. You will find this passage in your Bibles on John 8:1-11.

"1 Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. 4 They said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" 6 They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him.

Jesus bent on the ground and began to write with his finger.7 But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." 8 Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders.

So he was left alone with the woman before him. 10 Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you" She replied, "No one sir." Then Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, [and] from now on do not sin anymore."

There are a lot of lessons we can learn from this story. First, that in the whole of Christianity, the main figure we have come to believe and worship is our Lord Jesus Christ, where volumes are written about him, starting from the four Evangelists, John, Luke, Matthew and Mark. Yet, this story is the only one on record that gives the faithful and idea that our Lord Jesus Christ who was known or called as a teacher even to scribes and Pharisees did write something, but he did so on the ground and although what he probably wrote during that incident was erased in just a few days.

What do you think Jesus wrote? There was even a story I heard in my youth, although I never read it in the Bible that Jesus did not write anything, but drew a line... saying that those who was without sin, can step up and stone the woman. Perhaps this story was one of those handed down through the centuries as Jews always followed tradition.

Indeed the Law of Moses condemned women caught in adultery. This gives us an idea of how one sided was the law in the Ancient world. What about the man who was in that adulterous situation? Didn't he also commit sin? Surely Moses would have known that when he got the Decalogue a.k.a. the Ten Commandments from God himself, it was God's law for the human race, not just a law that prohibits or warns women not to commit adultery?

It is easy to understand the Jews in those days because the emancipation actually happened in less than a hundred years ago. Before women were able even to vote for their political candidates, women were considered "chattel"... or the possession or the property of a man. When you buy a car and loan money for it... it is called a "Chattel Mortgage". Women then had very little or no rights at all.

Perhaps this is why the response of our Lord Jesus to the very excited elders was at best a very nonchalant reply, "Let among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." In the end, they all left him with the woman for they too have sinned... perhaps even a worse sin. The problem really was that, they were too self-righteous... calling upon the Law of Moses on those who commit adultery... which was death by stoning.

While Christianity has moved away from this cruel type of execution, but not in Islam. The Koran dictates that those guilty of adultery are to be severely punished with a hundred lashes for unmarried persons. But for married adulterers, it is still the same, stoning to death. Back in the 80's a royal princess from a Middle East country was caught committing adultery and she was stoned to death in public and someone took a video of this and sold it to the outside world.

Today, adultery within the Christian world seems to be just one of those things... though it is usually done secretly, it often breaks up into the limelight just like what recently happened between Kris Aquino and her husband James Yap who had an adulterous relationship with Hope Centeno which blew into a very public albeit embarrassing scandal. The fans of Kris may cry for her, but Kris too cannot complain simply because she too was involved in a previous two, not one, but two equally adulterous affair with Philip Salvador and Joey Marquez.

So please don't misunderstand the reply of our Lord Jesus Christ to the adulterous woman when he said, "Neither do I condemn you." Remember he said, "Go and from now on do not sin anymore." This means adulterers are forgiven if they would stop committing the same sin. God Bless!

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