Our daily reflections follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan, designed for those who want to read the whole Bible in one year. Each reflection focuses on one of the chapters from that day's readings. Darllenwch rhain yn Gymraeg.
Lord, prepare me to receive your word. Clear my mind and warm my heart. Assure me of your loving purposes for me, and speak into my life today.
This story of Jesus and the woman taken in the act of adultery has many layers to it, and it raises as many questions as it gives answers. It is not in the very earliest manuscripts of John's Gospel, and some translations print it in a footnote. Other manuscripts include it, but elsewhere in John; one has it in Luke. It seems to have been a story people knew was true, but weren't quite sure what to do with; St Augustine thought it had been left out of early manuscripts because people didn't like to think of an adulteress getting away with it.
One of the questions is, where was the man? It's been suggested that he might have been a Roman, perhaps a soldier; perhaps she had very little choice in what happened. Another is, what was Jesus writing in the sand? We don't know; perhaps it was just a distraction, but one suggestion is that he was writing down her crime, and then her punishment.
When he tells her accusers that the one without sin should cast the first stone he shames them into leaving. We might imagine them scuffing up the ground with their sandals as they do, obliterating the record of the woman's crime.
We are prone to write people's sins in concrete – and perhaps our own, too. We find it hard to forget what's been done, and hard to forgive. Jesus writes in the dust; he simply tells sinners to go, and do better next time.
God, keep me from judging other people too harshly. Help me to forgive as Jesus forgave, and to be as aware of my own sins as I am of the sins of others.
This reflection was written by Mark Woods, Bible Society's Editor
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