Leading a Rebellion: The Scarlet Letter

Leading a Rebellion:

Jesus and the Scarlet Letter

John 7:53-8:12

Intro: If we take away the “Son of God” aspect and just looked at Jesus as a man, what makes Him so likeable? Attractive to the masses? What gives Him his magnetism?

            Isaiah 53:2 says that He had no form or comeliness, no beauty that we should desire Him. What does that mean? He wasn’t hot. He wasn’t Justin Beiber, or the next great boy band member. People didn’t flock to Him because He had superstar good looks. There had to be some reasons people flocked to Him. What were they?

-Smart; wise; a hard working carpenter/ a man’s man; not seen as the religious elite or upper crust of society/ salt of the earth type of guy; He stood up to and defied the powers of the day; He was spiritual; He was discerning; but perhaps most of all He was compassionate.

            Today we’re going to be studying one of the most compassionate moments of Jesus’ ministry, how He chose compassion over legalism, and how He saw through the trap of His adversaries.

Scripture: John 7:53-8:12

            In the last passage of John chapter 7 the religious leaders are condemning Nicodemus for wanting to give Jesus a fair trial and not being so quick to judge Him. The first verse of the next passage says, “They went each to his own house, 8 ¹ but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.” Why is that significant? Because these religious leaders all had homes to live in but Jesus did not. Early in His ministry Jesus told would be followers that “Foxes have holes but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.” True to His word, He was virtually homeless His entire ministry.

² Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. ³ The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst ⁴ they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” ⁶ 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. ⁷ 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.” ⁸ And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. ⁹ 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. ¹⁰ Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”¹² Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

            Verse 2 says that early in the morning He came to the temple to teach. Jesus was not an official rabbi, or teacher, but everyone wanted to hear what He had to say, and so a great number of people showed up to hear Him. Imagine you were a highly educated and respected rabbi who spent years working on your profession and then all of a sudden this carpenter’s son comes out of nowhere and starts drawing away all of your students and teaching them things contrary to what you have been teaching them. There would, without a doubt, be some hostility brewing there.

The Elements of the Trap: Verse 3 starts us into the meat of the story. Scribes and Pharisees show up with a woman caught in the “very act” of adultery and throw her down in the midst of Jesus’ crowd. You can imagine these leaders pushing through the crowd, pulling a frightened woman by the arm and then throwing her down like a piece of trash, and then laying the accusation out in front of Him. Verses 4-5 the Pharisees told Jesus that the woman was caught in the very act of adultery and reminded Him that the Mosaic law required her to be put to death.

            As many of you all know I enjoy playing chess. Chess is a battle game with different pieces capable of attacking in a variety of ways. The queen is the most powerful, followed by rooks, then bishops and knights, and finally, the lowest of the low come the pawns. A few years ago, in an attempt to find more things for Rebekah and I to do as a couple I began reading books on how to be a better chess player. You see I knew how to move the pieces but I did not know how to develop a strategy. In verses 3-5 we are introduced to the pieces as well as the strategy. The woman caught in “the very act of adultery” was just a poor simple pawn. Have you ever asked yourself how these religious leaders caught this woman in the very act of adultery? Surely she wasn’t one of their wives and it was just coincidence. How hard would it have been to randomly discover a woman caught in the very act of adultery at the same time Jesus would have been teaching in the temple? There is no doubt in my mind that they trapped the poor woman, and was willing to have her executed to prove a point against Jesus. Perhaps her and her husband had fallen on hard times, and were completely broke and about to lose everything when one of the religious leaders’ cohorts approached her about paying her some money to have sex with him. Perhaps she begrudgingly agreed to do this shameful and humiliating act when suddenly strangers burst in with their accusations, threw a sheet around her, and drug her off to the temple to see Jesus.

Deuteronomy 22:22 “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.” If this woman was not just a pawn in the religious leaders’ game, where was the man? Would he not have been caught in the very act of adultery, too? Under the Mosaic law, both were to be stoned.

            So now we have the pieces, what’s the strategy? Jesus is now faced with a dilemma: If He condemns her and agrees that she needs to be put to death, then all of His talk about grace and mercy will be seen as steaming pile of malarkey; but if He shows her grace and mercy He is going against the Mosaic law. I have played a lot of games of chess where I was sure I had my opponent beat, when all of a sudden my attack will be thwarted by something previously unseen.

            In verse 6 Jesus goes all “Son of God/ Nuclear” on these religious leaders: He stooped down, and started writing in the dirt, as though He did not hear them. Can’t you picture the religious leaders looking at Him and getting ticked that He was ignoring them, “Hey, Jesus! Adulteress here! (Snap, Snap, Snap).” And then they catch a glimpse of what He was writing, and everything changes. Jesus stood up and said, “Let He who is without sin cast the first stone.” Then He started writing again and one by one everyone left.

            So what was Jesus writing? Some say He wrote down names of the people in the group, and let them think to themselves, “If He knows my name He probably also knows my sins. I better leave.” Others think the opposite in that He wrote down specific sins and let people attach their own names in their hearts. And still others say it was a combination of the two. Either way, the masses were convicted of their sins and left defeated, humiliated, embarrassed, and enraged. Verse 10 says that Jesus stood up and saw that no one was left. He was that intently ignoring them that He didn’t even realize they were all gone. Speaking to the woman He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one Lord.” What sin-free person was left that could still cast that first stone? Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” Verse 12 says that Jesus spoke to His disciples, so we know they were still there, too. I imagine them standing there with their jaws on the ground in complete shock. Peter sent out a text to John, “Did you just see that? #unbelievable #owned.”

Rebellion: The rebellion aspect in this story is pretty simple. When Jesus was approached by the religious leaders and the national authorities, He did not bend His principles to fit what they wanted. Secondly, when forced with the option of being legalistic or compassionate, He chose compassion.

Application: What can we take away from this? Did you notice how when Jesus began writing in the dirt people began leaving one by one? It was not a mass exodus of people. People were getting convicted of their sins on an individual basis. Perhaps Jesus wrote “Liar” on the ground first. That may not have convicted everyone, but everyone has that one thing they know they are doing wrong that if anybody found out about they would be so embarrassed—it was just a matter of time before Jesus got to them and their hot button sin.

            Have you ever done something wrong to someone and you felt uncomfortable around that person for a long time? Perhaps the other person doesn’t even know about it, but you do and it makes you feel weird. Maybe you lied to them. Maybe you took something of theirs. Do you ever get that guilty distance? “I feel guilty and uncomfortable around you, so I’m just going to keep myself busy doing other things so you won’t notice I’m not around as much anymore.” People do that a lot with God. They start doing something they know is sinful, maybe they started having sex with their boyfriend or girlfriend and don’t want to deal with the guilt, so they stop coming to church and start hanging out with people who won’t make them feel guilty.

            The Pharisees and scribes, when confronted with their own sinfulness, they no longer could stand to be in the presence of a Holy God, which is what Jesus was, so they left. Unfortunately, they left the only solution to their problem. According to verse 12 who else was there? The disciples were still there. How is it that they could stand to have their sins exposed in front of a Holy God? Because they had already dealt with their sin issue by accepting Jesus as their only hope for salvation. Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

            What about you? If you were standing face to face with a Holy God, with all of your sins exposed, would you be able to stand there or would you have to keep that guilty distance? I can show you tonight how you can stand confidently in front of a Holy God.