11"No one, sir," she said.
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
A woman was caught in the act of adultery and brought before Jesus. It was a test to see if Jesus would stone her as was the punishment for such crime. But Jesus did the opposite of what the Pharisees thought he would do. He didn't condemn her but he told her to walk away from the life she had been living. What does it mean to condemn?
According to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary condemn is defined as:
1: to declare to be reprehensible, wrong, or evil usually after weighing evidence and without reservation condemned as racist>
3: to adjudge unfit for use or consumption <condemn an old apartment building>
So Jesus wasn't going to humiliate the woman or declare her unfit because it wasn't necessary, though it would've been understandable based on the law. She knew she did wrong, Jesus knew and so did the Pharisees. What she needed to know from Jesus was she was still loved and just needed to learn from her mistakes. What about us? What in our lives have we messed up? Where did we make a wrong turn? Our God is a God of second chances, sometimes even a third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh. But we must learn from our mistakes and sincerely seek to turn away from them. We must be willing to admit to ourselves that we made a mistake, otherwise we won't learn and only continue to perpetuate the same behaviors which result in the same outcomes. The nasty cycle is what Jesus wants to break in us. He uses love to break it, sometimes tough love when necessary. Why not try His love? If it worked for a woman who would've been condemned to death, surely, it will work for you and me.
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