Part Three: Counterpunch

“So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.”
John 8:7-8

The Pharisees tried to goad Jesus into condemning an adulterous woman to death.

Instead of playing their legal games, Jesus ignores the question and begins writing something in the dirt.

As He writes, they keep pressuring Him, perhaps with something annoying like this…
“Look at her! She’s guilty! We caught her in the act! Moses law says to kill her!
Do you follow the law or not? Well, answer! Should she die or not?”

Jesus stands up from His writing and finally addresses them.
He says that she should indeed be judged guilty and stoned, but only by a perfect, sinless person.

Wow. Absolute genius.
Jesus is saying that in order to deliver their desired idea of perfect justice, they would have to use their sinless hands.

But they had sinful hands.
We all have sinful hands.
Except for the one on the ground writing in the dirt…His hands were perfect.
And those perfect hands could not be bought by a Pharisee.

What was He writing?
I’ll give you a guess.
He wrote personal things that caused them to sit up and take notice…He wrote out something that shamed the proud into silence…not an easy task unless you know things and “have the receipts”.

And then He knelt back down to write MORE.
The Lord has a thorough record of every sin we’ve ever committed. He can write a long rap sheet for each of us AND bring swift punishment for each sin. God has the dirt on each of us.

But here in the temple, Jesus represents a new Sheriff in town who has come to deliver grace for sinners and mercy for the guilty.

As we’ll see tomorrow, His words were more powerful than their stones.