Reciprocity and Repentance

Gospel: Jn 8:1-11
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031824.cfm

Today’s gospel starts with a foreshadowing of Jesus’s passion as it mentions that Jesus started his day at the Mount of Olives. The Garden of Gethsemane, which is at the base of Mount Olives, is where Jesus will soon be praying with his disciples and get arrested. The temple is also right by all of these locations.

Jesus then spends some time teaching at the temple when a crowd approaches him with a woman that they are planning to stone. Stoning was a form of capital punishment during Jesus’s time, and stoning was the punishment established in the law for a person who has committed adultery. Jesus doesn’t make a scene. Instead, he draws on the ground and says that he who is without sin can cast the first stone. He then returns to drawing and the crowd eventually disperses.

We often can be like the crowd and focus on the sins of others, but if we take a moment and reflect on our behavior, we will find that we too are with sin and have no room to condemn and judge another. This gospel shows us that when we want to condemn others for their sin, we must take some time to examine our conscience.

Once the crowd dispersed, Jesus looks up at the woman and lets her know that he does not condemn her and tells her to “Go and sin no more.” God is always wanting to reconcile with us. God greets us with compassionate love. In return, God asks for repentance. If sin is us separating ourselves from God, repentance is us returning our love to God. God wants us to reciprocate love. 

In our own lives, we can both be the crowd and the woman in today’s gospel. Through mercy, forgiveness, and repentance we can learn to be more like Christ.