The Stone Fell From My Hand.

I stood there ready to do my duty: to obey to the fullest the Law of God, given through his servant Moses.

She had violated God’s sacred Law. She had violated our community. She had violated a man. She had violated herself.

How, I reasoned, can society survive if these crimes go unpunished?

We must, I must, uphold the standard of our nation and people. Her actions were an affront to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This assault could not stand. It was evil.

I stood there ready, stone in hand.

She to me was a nameless, immoral woman. An adulteress, a seducer of men. Those who go near her tread the very gates of hell.

I do not know her name. It does not matter. I know her crime, her sin. She was caught in the very act of adultery.

What has happened to our world? I wonder to myself. Our morals are in decay. This must be stopped. It must be stopped here and now.

I stood there, a stone in my hand. We stood there. I was not alone. We were ready and united, each with a stone. Our stones would bury this assault on our values. Our stones would crush this nameless woman.

It was easier to do this as a crowd. We would all participate but none of us would bear the guilt of knowing whose stone struck the mortal blow. It was better this way – a nameless seductress dispatched by a faceless crowd.

We were only doing our duty to protect the honor of God.

Then this man stepped in the way.

He stood between the condemned woman and our justice. He knelt down. At first I thought he was reaching for a stone to join us in our duty. But he did not pick up a stone. Instead, he wrote something in the dirt. I could not see what he wrote.

I cannot tell you what he wrote that day, but I can tell you what he said, for it destroyed something in me.

I have been zealous from my youth to please God, to do what is right, and to live according to his Law. To this end I have devoted my entire life. I have known no other way.

So eager was I to do what is right that I joined the strictest group of true believers. I wanted nothing to do with compromise. I thought this would help me to attain righteousness before God and man.

By outward appearances I was very successful in this pursuit. But, in the dark silent places of my heart I knew better.

Age has a way revealing the human frailties youth so easily hides. Not the frailties of an aging body, I am not vain enough to care about my grey, thinning hair. No, it is a much deeper frailty. More than my body aches, my soul aches.

My old age has been a stern teacher, making me more and more aware of how undone I am. In spite of all my efforts, the painful broken places remain covered over but not hidden. They are there. I know it. And he knows it.

He spoke and his voice was like that of many waters. Water for cleansing, water for healing, water for renewing. Water was again flowing from the Rock.

His words shook me to my core, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Every darkness in me flashed before me on full ignoble display.

I was undone. I was destroyed. I surrendered.

I could not cast a stone at her without unleashing a thousand condemnations upon my own head. I was the guilty one.

He knelt down and began to write again.

As he did, the stone fell from my hand and I fell upon the Rock.