Jaci Garrett | I have two favorite chapters in the Bible: Mark 5, and John 8. I’m going to cover Mark 5 next week as we look at how Jesus loves people, but for this week, I want use to consider John 8. This is not an unfamiliar passage for us, we’ve heard countless sermons on it, but I want us to settle into verse 6. Here we read that Jesus gets down in the dirt with the woman caught in adultery. Jesus easily could have stood alongside the Pharisees and said, “You’re right, stone her.” But instead, Jesus stands with her and defends her, ready to take the same punishment as her. Jesus knew that this woman had no voice and no one was with her, so he took his place next to her and defended her.
So what does this mean for us? Well, it means that we have a duty to stand up for the voiceless and powerless. If our goal and aim is to be like Christ, then we have to love like Christ. This means that we are willing to get in the dirt, stand beside, and if needed, to take some stones for our brothers and sisters. (I believe firmly that Jesus would have taken stones for this woman had the Pharisees not dropped them.)
What we see from Jesus, standing up for those who cannot do it for themselves (such as women, children, and samaritans) is the gospel. We are called to fight for the powerless. Jesus says in Matthew 25 that in visiting the sick, poor, widowed, and imprisoned, it is as though we did it to Jesus himself. I believe that this is what Jesus said when he told us to be the hands and feet. Anyone can go and talk a big Jesus talk, but if our actions do not point people back to Jesus then we are nothing more than a “clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1).”
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” The question we have to start asking ourself is, “if I saw a woman in the situation like that of the on in John 8, where would I be standing? With the Pharisees, holding those stones, or in the dirt with her and Jesus?” As we consider such things, may we look to scripture as a guide for our life. May all of our actions towards others reflect the same love and value that Jesus has shown us.