Personal attacks on individuals through social media have become a common feature of modern life. People who express what may be perfectly legitimate opinions find themselves being condemned on social media by strangers. Or they may receive hundreds of abusive emails, some making serious threats to personally attack them or their families. Those who make these attacks claim the moral high ground and seem oblivious to their own faults. In such situations the words of Jesus come to mind, “If anyone is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone.”
Jesus spoke these words when he was at the Temple in Jerusalem. While he was teaching the people, some religious leaders pushed through the crowd dragging with them a woman whom they had caught committing adultery. It was at the Feast of Tabernacles when the nation remembered how God had provided for them during the 40 years they had spent in the wilderness on their way to Canaan. During the feast some people lived in temporary shelters, called tabernacles, and the woman and the man may have been among them.
In their deep antagonism against Jesus the religious leaders were using the woman as a test case to find a reason for accusing him. They declared before all the people that the woman had been caught in the act of adultery and, according to the law of Moses deserved to die, although this penalty had not been carried for centuries. Then they asked Jesus, “Now what do you say?” If he did not condemn the woman, they would accuse him of false teaching.
Jesus looked them in the eye and said, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” To the amazement of the woman one by one all the men began to go away. Jesus asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no-one condemned you?” She replied, “No-one sir.” Jesus declared, “Then neither do I condemn you, go now and leave your life of sin.”
It is a wonderful thing to know that God doesn’t condemn us. All of us have sinned, sometimes grievously, as this woman had. We are all guilty in God’s sight and have no right to expect his mercy. But God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Jesus is the Lamb of God who, by his death on the cross, took away the sin of the world.
Tag: death on the cross
The boy in the striped pyjamas
My wife and I recently watched the holocaust film “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.” The film portrays the horrors of a Nazi extermination camp in Poland through the eyes of two 8-year-old boys: Bruno, the son of the camp’s Nazi commandant, and Shmuel, a Jewish inmate. Bruno and his family moved from Berlin to live in a house near the camp. Only his father knows what the camp really is. Bruno can see it from his bedroom and thinks it’s a farm. Bruno has no friends to play with and sneaks into the woods. When he comes to the barbed wire fence, he sees Shmuel who, with his parents, is a prisoner in the camp. The two boys become friends.
Bruno thinks Shmuel’s striped prison uniform is pyjamas. Bruno takes food to Shmeul and they play board games through the barbed wire. One day when Shmuel is working in his home Bruno gives him a cake but doesn’t admit it when a soldier discovers Shmeul eating the cake. The solider punishes Shmeul by beating him badly. Bruno cries because he has let his friend down and later apologises to Shmeul who forgives him. Shmeul tells Bruno that his father has gone missing in the camp. Bruno, thinking the camp is a pleasant place, tells him that, to make up for letting him down, he will help him find his father. The next day Bruno puts on a prisoner’s striped uniform and cap and digs under the fence to join Shmuel.
The boys go into one of the huts and Bruno is shocked to see the many sick and malnourished Jewish people. Suddenly a siren sounds and everyone in the hut, including Bruno and Shmeul, is marched to a changing room where they are told to remove their clothes for a “shower” before they are herded into the gas chamber. As the lights go out Bruno and Shmeul hold hands to comfort each other as a soldier pours the gas pellets into the chamber. When they realise he is missing, Bruno’s parents run desperately to the camp but are too late to save him. Behind the locked door of the now silent gas chamber all the prisoners, including Bruno and Shmeul, are dead.
The film vividly portrays both unspeakable wickedness and a true friendship that transcended man-made barriers. It also reminds us of God’s amazing love. Out of love for us Jesus left his eternal home in heaven to come to this sinful world and willingly died on the Cross to pay the penalty our sins deserve so that we might receive eternal life. Jesus said, “Greater love has no-one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
As white as snow
We have had the first snowfalls of winter. There is a stillness as the dark days are illuminated by the pure brightness of the snow. Each of the trillions of snowflakes is unique, carrying the Creator’s signature. In 1885, scientist Wilson Bentley devised a way of attaching his camera to a microscope so he could take photographs of snowflakes in greater detail than ever before. Getting this close made it even clearer that no two flakes are the same. Every snowflake has its own unique pattern.
The snow reminds us of one of God’s great promises, “Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow.” God made this promise to people who had rebelled against him. They worshipped other gods, lived immoral lives and were dishonest. They looked for happiness in material things. They knew God’s law, but they wilfully and deliberately went their own way. As a nation they had turned away from the living God. So, God called them to account. In his mercy, he did not immediately bring on them the judgement their sins deserved but held out the promise of forgiveness and cleansing.
There are real parallels between those people and the way we are living today. Encouraged by politicians and unchallenged by weak church leaders our nation has turned from God. His moral law has been rejected and together we are fulfilling the desires of our own hearts. Inevitably we are reaping the painful consequences both personally and nationally. Even the terrible pandemic we are experiencing has not humbled us and made us seek God.
There are times, however, when we need to face the reality of how we are living. Like a person who wakes after a night on the town and looks in the mirror, we won’t like what we see, we won’t like what we have become. In the light of who God is we will see the tawdry life we are living and the deep stains our sins have left on our God-given conscience. We may long that we could go back and change the things we have done, but we can’t.
God’s wonderful promise is deep and real forgiveness. His Son, Jesus, died on the Cross to pay the price of our sin and rebellion. When we humbly confess our sins, and receive him as our Saviour, the scarlet stains of our sins are cleansed, and we become as white and pure in God’s sight as the driven snow.