INSIDE A CIRCLE OF STONES

Today's reading: John 7-8

"Then Jesus stood up again and said to her, Where are your accusers? Didn't even one of them condemn you? No, Lord, she said. And Jesus said, Neither do I. Go and sin no more." John 8:10-11 NLT

I don't know if it was because of the customs of the time, or because the other accused was one of their own, but only one of the guilty parties was dragged before Jesus that day and accused of adultery.

But if you will give me a bit of license here, I want to place us in the story in a way that quite possibly you have never seen/heard/felt/experienced it before.

Imagine you are the half-dressed woman standing beside a soft-spoken rabbi inside a circle of accusatory, finger-pointing religious men.

Imagine your hair mussed and out of place, outside of its customary veil, flowing wildly in the Jerusalem winds.

Imagine your eyeliner smeared all over your face from the tears you've cried out of fear and rage and embarrassment.

Imagine the stares that have seemingly bored holes all the way through to your soul from onlookers and accusers and passers-by.

Imagine the shouting, the unkind words, the derogatory comments, the labels she was being given by complete strangers who felt they had the right to pass judgement on the proceedings.

Imagine you finally opening your eyes and sweeping away the locks of hair to notice that in an awkward moment of silence you are standing inside a circle of stones.

Stones that have been dropped by your accusers as they quietly slipped away convicted by their own sins Stones they were unable to throw at you.

Do you think that picture etched a permanent place in that woman's mind? 

Is it possible she never ever forgot the ring of rocks that surrounded her and her Savior that day?

Would she have been a little like me and grabbed one of those stones as a tactile momento of what had happened for her as she headed home?

Do you think that moment changed her life? Her future? Her choices from that point on?