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Summary
John 7:53-8:1, “They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.”
Last time we discussed what an ominous statement this is, for the Feast of Tabernacles is all about becoming a common house, a living temple, the ultimate party. On The Mt. of Olives, Jesus prophesies the destruction of the old stone temple and the end of the age, which is the opening of the fountain and the construction of the living temple that is His own Body and Bride.
John 8:3, “The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery….” They placed her in the middle, invoked the law of Moses, and attempted to trap Jesus into presiding over a public stoning. He bent down, wrote with His finger on the ground, then stood up and said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her(8:7).”
Jesus is without sin . . . And I think we’d like Him to throw some stones. Many expect Him to come again in order to do just that.
Death by stoning is brutal, but in Scripture, adultery is an incredibly serious sin. Adultery destroys trust, and trust (faith) holds a society together. But who should be blamed? Some would blame the woman; some would blame the man (where is he?); some would blame the society that drives a young woman to such actions.
What do we do when we don’t know who to blame? Many sociologists point out that we find “scapegoats” and that designating scapegoats is, in fact, how the social structures (governments, businesses, religions) of this world are formed. So, to unify a group, a leader identifies a scapegoat (a person or group of persons) and blames the scapegoat for all the evils experienced in the group. And so, by accusing the scapegoat of evil, the group is convinced that they have saved their “life” and made themselves “good.” Then, of course, you stone the scapegoat or . . .. crucify him. However, in Scripture (Leviticus 16), the Scapegoat is actually a goat that just wanders around in the wilderness, bearing the sins of the people . . . Weird, huh?
God does prescribe stoning in several places. If anyone touched the Holy Mountain, if a son was stubborn and rebellious, if a betrothed virgin committed adultery — they were each to be stoned. Ironically, in John 8, they are all standing on “the Holy Mountain”; the sons of Israel were “stubbornly rebellious”; and Jerusalem was a betrothed virgin unfaithful to Yahweh (Ezekiel 16). The Law stipulated that “a witness” must throw the first stone. Jesus said, “Let it be the one without sin.” He didn’t witness the woman’s adultery, but he was witnessing the adultery of everyone else. Believe the Bible just a wee bit, and it would seem that everybody must get stoned.
Would you like to “get stoned”? Ironically, that has a couple of meanings in our society that appear to be almost exactly opposite one another, but, upon reflection, may be quite similar. The ancient Hebrew prophets had a similar expression: “Drink the cup of staggering.” It was a punishment — you would lose your dignity, self-respect, and public composure — and yet it is something of a longing in each one of us, isn’t it? “Don’t be drunk with wine,” writes Paul, “but be filled with the Spirit.” Perhaps, if the Pharisees got stoned — truly died to themselves and their own self-righteousness (drugs and alcohol can’t do this) — they’d be able to join the Great Banquet and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.
John 8:7-11, “’Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’ …[And] when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones… And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more.’”
Recently a friend asked why I had been relatively quiet in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death and all that was going on in our country. Good question. So, I’ve been asking myself, “Why have we stopped talking to each other but throw stones and find ourselves so all alone?” Here are a few ideas:
1. We’ve chosen knowledge rather than Life; we’ve chosen knowledge about things over knowing and being known by people. In recent years, cell phones, sound bites, click bait, algorithms, and social media have enabled this choice. And yet, it’s an ancient choice. On a tree in a garden, Adam took knowledge of the Good and everything died. On a tree in a garden, the Pharisees took knowledge of the Good and refused to be known by the Good who is the Life, the Living Word. Up until the time of Moses (and the invention of the alphabet), every word was attached to a face on a living person. Moses got what we all asked for: the Word written in stone — we call it “the Law.”
2. We’ve surrendered to fear and renounced faith. Faith is trust in another person. But if we stone “persons,” we have to trust our knowledge of things. And so of course we’re afraid, for that means that we have to save ourselves with our own knowledge of Good and evil. But we’re not saved by what we know; we’re saved by the One who knows us. That means: We can be wrong about things and have conversations with people. And we need to have conversations about “things” in order to best love people. Charlie Kirk appears to have talked with everyone— especially those who opposed him—but you don’t need to prove Jesus. When you live (and die) like Jesus, you will be all the proof that this world needs.
3. We’ve desired self-righteousness over righteousness, for we think self-righteousness is the only righteousness that there is. Recently, the president has been sporting a hat that says: “[The President] was right about everything.” Maybe he’s trolling. Maybe he’s joking. Let’s pray he doesn’t mean it, for “right about everything” means you’d be wrong about nothing, which means you would have never sinned and could start throwing stones but would have no knowledge of Grace, who is God and the Ground of all Being (Reality).
If you don’t believe that Jesus is your righteousness, you’ll start throwing stones; you’ll look for scapegoats, be intimidated by diversity, hate equity, and abhor inclusion. If we enforce those things from the outside through legislation, we create uniformity, inequity, and exclusion. But if righteousness wells up from inside of us, we delight in each and all of those things, for they describe Life in a body… as well as an endless party. Self-righteousness crucifies righteousness and wrecks the party — but only for a time. Righteousness is an unstoppable and eternal fountain.
4. We’ve chosen taking without giving, vengeance that’s not Grace, the “judgment” that refuses to forgive. We’ve renounced the fountain.
Speaking at her husband’s memorial, Erika Kirk said, “On the cross, our Savior said, ‘Father forgive them, for they [do] not know what they do.’ That young man (her husband’s assassin) — I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer, we know from the Gospel, is love and always love — love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.” That’s the Fountain. That’s the judgment of God.
Twenty minutes later at the Memorial, the current president publicly disagreed. And previously, the former president famously said, “We will not forgive. We will hunt you down.” That’s what the principalities and powers of this world do. But we belong to another kingdom, and our supreme weapon is the fluid that flows from the Fountain. It flows from our broken body when we forgive; then, we bleed the Fire which is the Judgment of God. But . . .
5. We stone people and refuse to get stoned; we think we’re saved by “scapegoating” when, in fact, we’re saved by the Scapegoat.
Whom have you blamed (scapegoated)? The president, “the Right” (whatever that is), “the left” (three lefts make a right), the Mexicans, the Americans? Think of your scapegoat and listen to the judgment from the throne: “As you did it unto one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it unto me . . . and I let you.” That will make you drop your stone, and maybe that is the Stone — the One who’s standing on the throne.
Take His life and you’ll see that He’s given His life to you. He bears your sin because He bears you and so brings you in from the wilderness that you would die with Him and rise with Him as a living sacrifice in his eternal body of relentless Love. It’s called “the Atonement.”
So, did Jesus break the law… or fulfill it?
Prophesying to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, Daniel describes the King’s dream, saying, “You saw a stone cut out by no human hand. It hit the image (Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome). The image of the beasts broke into pieces and blew away like chaff. But the stone became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” Zechariah and Isaiah also saw the stone. Peter, Paul, and Jesus all quote Isaiah in reference to the Stone. In the Revelation, John sees God in Christ Jesus destroy the harlot with fluid from the Fountain, and suddenly, in her place on the Holy Mountain, we meet the Bride who is the temple of our Lord’s Body made of living stones.
The Stone hit the earth, and the Fountain was opened as Jesus cried, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” God is Grace. Grace is the Stone. Grace even chooses to get stoned with us that in Him we would become the righteousness of God — that we would enjoy the party.
When I think that someone deserves to be stoned, I get a little rush. I feel a little self-righteous. Then, I get nervous and feel so all alone. But when I remember that everyone, but Christ, deserves to be stoned — and Christ chooses to be stoned with me, die with me, and rise in me, even as me — I drop my stone, feel like talking to my neighbors, and don’t feel so all alone. “It’s not good for the Adam to be alone,” said God on the Holy Mountain by a tree in the middle of a garden.
“Well, they’ll stone you when you are all alone.
They’ll stone you when you are walking home…
“But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.” – A Jewish boy who knew his Bible.