A well-known French priest and writer, Michel Quoist, whose books are also published here, writes this in his book “God is waiting for me”: I am not satisfied with myself. I have already examined my life several times about my attitude towards others, and today I realized that my reactions are still very immature humanly and completely abnormal Christianly. However, by how I treat my brothers, I will be judged … This sad statement started this morning when I read the newspaper. The headline of an article that reported a particularly heinous crime was the first to catch my eye. After a while, I realized that I was responding with an unreserved condemnation of a person, and that this condemnation was based on a feeling of hatred. Unfortunately, I realized that I am mixing evil as such and the one who commits it. I do not condemn evil, but immediately and proudly denounce man.
This is a humble and public confession of a Christian, a writer, a spiritual counselor, a priest. And when I read the event of today’s Gospel, it occurred to me that we act similarly to those accusers of an adulterous woman. Although we tell ourselves that we stand in the correct position with the Lord Jesus, we would be on the side of that woman together with him. But in reality, in specific life situations, we often act like those plaintiffs.
We need a direct word from Jesus that reminds us of our actual state. How many failures, sins, and unbeliefs have been in our lives! When a person is older, he quickly forgets his youth, the transgressions of a hot head, and the raging blood in his veins. Or he becomes a “sclerotic,” and then he prefers not to know—or instead does not want to know—anything. Anyone who knows that dark place deep in man knows how long a shadow our sinfulness casts.
When a person finally discovers that shadow, when he realizes it, what about him? An old Chinese fable tells of a man who could not bear his shadow. He wanted to get rid of him by running from him. He ran faster and faster, but the shadow ran just as fast. Finally, in a mad escape, he fell to the ground dead. Only when he fell to the ground did his body cover his shadow. Even though we know that our sins have been forgiven, the shadow still worries us. And so we ask: what about it? On the one hand, there are accusers before the Lord Jesus. They brought their sins before Jesus in the guilty woman. They were too zealous; they wanted to get Jesus into trouble. Hot heads, raging blood. On the other side stood a woman, terrified, humiliated, aware of her guilt and reconciled to being stoned.
And what did the Lord Jesus do? He bent down to the ground and wished them time to look at each other. And he wrote something with his finger in the sand. No one knows what he wrote there. There are many interpretations. The scene should remind us that the one sent by the heavenly Father is present here, who inscribed the Ten Commandments with his finger on the stone tablets on Mount Sinai. Or that scene suggests that the law carved in stone became ephemeral in the hands of the Pharisees and scribes like the writing in the sand, and that now only the living law of God filled with love applies. Or Saint Jerome may be right, who says that Jesus put the individual sins of the accusers in the sand, so that they all quietly disappeared when he said: „Which of you is without sin, let him throw the first stone!“
But one thing is sure: The wisdom of the word of God, which the Pharisees and teachers of the law knew, was precisely fulfilled. In the book of Proverbs we read: „Psal … grabs by the ears, the one who meddles in a dispute that does not concern him (Prov 26,17) … Whoever digs another’s pit will fall into it himself, and whoever rolls a stone at another will roll his self“ (Proverbs 26,27). And so a strange situation arose. The woman’s plaintiffs quietly and subtly disappeared from the scene. Only the woman who could also leave remained. It is not easy for a sinful person to stand before a saint. But Christ the Lord is exceedingly powerful. It is not easier to calm wild blood than to calm a storm on Lake Gennesaret. And Jesus Christ was able to relax both.
And finally, we have something else – we still have a small addition to the fable with the shadow. That Chinese fable ends like this: If that man, fleeing from his shadow, had entered the shadow of a tall tree, he would have gotten rid of his own shadow. But he didn’t think of it, so he died. That adulterous woman entered the high shadow of Jesus. She recognized how the Lord Jesus loves her, how he can forgive, and therefore she remained alive. She didn’t leave like the other sinners.
And that is an excellent lesson for us. Whoever believes in the love of Jesus does not have to run away from himself. He knows that he is loved even with his shadow in the shadow of the Lord Jesus, who, although alone without sin, took upon himself all our sins, our shadow ceases to exist. And it should oblige us to love our neighbors with their shadows, according to Jesus’ example. When the temptation comes upon us to take the stone of our malice and unloved in our hands and want to throw it at someone, let us honestly and humbly ask ourselves: I am genuinely without sin, so I can be the first to throw a stone? And if we answer this question honestly and honestly, I firmly believe that our stones of malice and unloved will quickly fall from our hands to the ground. Lord, we beg you, let us continuously love you in our brothers and sisters, that we may always seek and follow your holy will, and so that they may enter your heavenly kingdom. Praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ!
