Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-18-22

Almost all of us know the story of the adulteress brought before Jesus. Almost all of us have not considered the myriad aspects and many lessons, nor asked – much less answered – the questions it presents.

From The Gospel of John, Chapter 8.

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning, He came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and He sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test Him, that they might have some charge to bring against Him.

Jesus bent down and wrote with His finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask Him, He stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more He bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before Him.

Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

And Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”…

I will share some thoughts I have, among many, from this story about that scene. I trust you will have more. Needless to say, I discern messages for our time, and for our lives, my life directly, as always happens when the Bible opens itself.

• Jesus did not minimize the woman’s sin. He maximized repentance and forgiveness.
• Religious leaders sought tricks to corner and twist and block the righteous. (They still act the same way today.) It is clear that the Pharisees, the professional religious hypocrites, were less concerned with the Law of Moses or even the woman acting justly, than trying to trick and discredit Jesus.
• Jesus FULFILLED the law, and did not seize upon it to condemn people. The harsh punishments of Old Testament rules were abolished by the Person and the Ministry of Jesus the Christ. Adherence to those laws was impossible, and righteousness is now found in true fellowship with Jesus.
• Jesus was writing in the sand with his finger. What was He writing? The Bible does not say. I believe He was not drawing doodles nor scribbling nonsense. In my mind’s eye He was writing the numbers 1 to 10 for all to see. Why? So the people might begin thinking about the Ten Commandments… and how many of those laws each of them had kept… or broken.
• The woman was face-to-face with her Savior. As He freed her, forgiveness flowed. How powerful is God’s forgiveness, and its “reach” into our lives? Jesus forgave before she asked… just as Christ gave His life for us while we were yet sinners! Our response then is to resist the sin nature, working to “sin no more” in life as the Holy Ghost enables.
• When He said, “Go and sin no more,” it closely followed the absolution… but the next verse indicates that the hypocritical Pharisees remained close by, and that message was directed to them too. And to us: Go and sin no more.

You might think I will relate this incident and its lessons to events that swirl around us today. You might be right.

I don’t have to do this, because the messages of the Holy Bible, and the Words of Jesus, stand on their own with applications for all people in all places at all times. Yet we are commanded to apply these truths.

Contemporary debates about abortion, and court decisions, and laws, relate to the incident of the woman… as well as to the attitudes of those who condemn her. Deeper is the motivation of the religious hypocrites: they hated Jesus and schemed to silence His message; and they had no compassion for the woman or her situation.

Her dilemma (and many Bible scholars believe that she specifically was unmarried and pregnant) is described as a consequence of her adultery. Jesus did not criticize her past actions, but lovingly sent her back to her home with the admonition to change her ways.

The abortion “debate” today is clothed in everything from cries for freedom to love for babies not yet born. Freedom and love somehow morph into violence and hate. Myself, I am not equating the two sides, like people who say “at least they’re sincere”: I believe abortion is murder.

Yet I see some sort of resolution to the current maelstrom of malice by returning, if we can imagine it, to that spot in the shadow of the Mount of Olives where the religious leaders tried to corner Jesus, and used the woman as a pawn.

Jesus identified the crisis of that confrontation. It was not mere adultery; it was sin. To the crowd, He defused their fury by confronting them with their hypocrisy. After her encounter with the Savior, she could not undo her sin… but she could repent, and she could change her life.

That is all Jesus asks when we accept Him.

And those numbers 1 to 10? If that’s what He wrote, it is significant that they were written in the sand. Irrelevant? No! But written by, explained by, and fulfilled by, Jesus Christ.

Let us go and resolve to sin no more.

+ + +

Video Click: Take My Life and Let It Be

https://youtu.be/qQfxc_zhlvA

9-27-21

“The only things in life we can be sure of are death and taxes.” Well, those are not the only things. One more is that stupid, lying saying itself. We hear it a lot, which doesn’t make it truer.

We can be sure of many things. King Solomon said that there is nothing new under the sun, and he was famously wise for such clarity. We can be sure of death, yes; and sickness, disease, sin. Broken promises, lost love. Not so quick – we can also be sure of life, birth, new life, and re-birth. Love. Happiness, joy, innocence, forgiveness, redemption. Salvation.

The good side of the ledger is longer, and more profound, than the dark side.

We can read those good items off the list, and we can write them. We can live them, and share them. But none of it is automatic. Sometimes the gloomy list of things in life seems written boldly, in large letters. And sometimes – too often – the cheery words and promises seem hard to read… the letters small… the words smudged.

But they are there. Move your eyes closer; turn up the light; focus.

Focus. Things like death and taxes, hard times and false friends can seem indeed like the stark, sure things in life. And sometimes the blessings and good can seem distant and obscure. Well, God promised us many things, but not always a silver platter – we are better off when we focus, concentrate, pray, seek, and find.

I recently “discovered” a place called Pictured Rocks on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The UP is a strange and large place that once welcomed workers who felled all its trees (it is dense forestland again) and copper (mostly removed) and iron ore (largely mined). Now it is a remote and, despite its spurts of past exploitation, a sparsely populated forestland.

Its soil is not pure dirt, if there be such a thing. It still has traces and veins of copper, iron, and other minerals. But just as fermentation can be a curse or a blessing in foods, so do these random minerals in the soil – not enough to mine successfully any more, and perhaps annoying to farmers – “redeem” themselves. Along Lake Superior are sandstone cliffs, beaches, sand dunes, waterfalls, inland lakes, a deep forest, and a wild shoreline of cliffs. The minerals, exposed to the sun and air and moisture, present rainbows of copper-oranges and oxidized greens and all varieties of colors. Rust actually can be beautiful.

Dig a little and discover the good that lives in surprising places.

Yeast, wine, cheeses, black tea, penicillin, and a thousand things that “turn”… are transformed to good. As people, we can “turn” too; and even circumstances can turn to good. You know the song: tadpoles to bullfrogs; caterpillars to beautiful butterflies. Rusty rocks to unlikely rainbows.

Turn the pages of life if you have to. There is beauty everywhere in God’s world, and treasures in His plans. Focus; you will see them.

You can be them.

+ + +

Click: This Is My Father’s World