The Woman Caught in Adultery

5^th Sunday of Lent (C); April 3, 2022

Is 43:16-21.  Ps 126.  Phil 3:8-14.  Jn 8:1-11

Deacon Jim McFadden

            Today we have another richly textured and challenging Lenten reading. This week we have the story of the woman caught in adultery from John’s Gospel—a tale that has beguiled Christians and non-Christians for two millennia, in which Jesus reaches out in mercy in order to bring sinners back to life.

            St. Augustine summed up the end of this  gospel reading we by saying, “The two of them alone remained: mercy with misery” (In John 33,5).  The “religious professionals,” the keepers of the Law, drag this woman out apparently after they caught her in the very act of having sex with someone not her husband.  They circle around her, to psychologically attack and humiliate her.  She can’t slink away and hide, but they drag her out and make her stand in the middle of the crowd.  They are there to cast stones at her, which is the punishment for adultery.

But, Jesus is also there and they really want to accuse him for either not being faithful to the Law or lacking in compassion.  So, after Jesus writes something in the dirt, they lost interest and drift away.  Jesus, however, remains, stays with the woman. Jesus remains because he sees her as she truly is: a person, a beloved daughter of God.  That comes before her sin.  Doesn’t that apply to us?  Before our mistakes, obsessions with being right, judging others, and innumerable moral failures, Jesus gazes upon us the same way he did with the woman: he looks upon her with love, he looks upon the sinner before her sin, before her failings, before her personal journey that has gone astray.

            “The two of them alone remained: mercy with misery.” Let’s look at Jesus’ mysterious gesture, which drove the self-righteous away: he writes with his finger on the ground (Jn 8:6.8).  We do not know what he wrote and perhaps that’s what important: the Gospel focuses on the fact that the Lord writes.  We harken back to the episode on Mt. Sinai when God wrote the 10 Commandments on the tablets with his finger (Ex 31:18).  Later, God would promise that he would no longer write on tablets of stone, but he would write on the tablets of our heart (Jer 31:33).  With Jesus, the Word of God incarnate, the time has come when God writes on our hearts, when he gives us hope from our misery.  This is what is happening with the woman in today’s gospel.  Jesus is writing on her heart, telling her that she is beloved.  He is going beyond external laws, which often can keep God at bay, but rather offers the law of the Holy Spirit which enters into our heart and sets us free.  It happened this way for the woman and it can happen to us today.  She stands there before Jesus: mercy with misery; she will resume her life, but she goes off to sin no more (cf. Jn 8:11).  It is Jesus, who with the Holy Spirit—the Lord and giver of Life—who frees us from evil, from the sin which the Law could impede but not remove. 

            “The two of them alone remained: mercy with misery.”  Isn’t that what happens in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.?  It’s right there–as the prophet Isaiah invites us, “Do you not perceive it? (Is 43:19).  It’s important to perceive God’s forgiveness.  The next time you go to Confession, remain like the woman, fix your gaze on Jesus, who  no longer looking at her humiliation, shame, and misery.  She looks upon the One, soon to be crucified, and says: “He is the one where my sins end up.  You took them upon yourself.  You did not point your finger at me in menacing accusation; instead, you gazed upon me with tender mercy, open your arms to me and forgave me once again.” 

            Brothers and sisters, it is important to remember the tender love of Jesus, to taste it over again and the peace and freedom that it brings.  For this is the heart of the Sacrament of Reconciliation: not the sins that we declare, but the divine love we receive, of which we are always in need. 

            “The two of them alone remained: mercy with misery.”  Today, in the Eucharist and Confession, we too draw life from the saving encounter with our Lord Jesus.  Yes, we bring our miseries, our worries, our sins, and the Lord knows us as we truly are: he loves us and frees us from our obsessions and from evil.  Let us enter into this encounter just as the woman did.  Let us ask for the grace to rediscover his saving power.  Amen.