He Stooped Down

Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. (John 8:8)

I want to take a look at this from different people's perspective in this story.

It may have likely appeared to the woman that Jesus was doing nothing for her benefit. It looked like He was just dawdling in the dirt to kill time while the accusations of her tormentors went on unabated bringing her ever closer to her painful demise.

To the accusers who had dragged her in it appeared that Jesus was ignoring their demands for a judgment of condemnation against this woman. They were likely encouraged by His apparent stalling that they had finally found the trap question that He couldn't escape, that He was simply trying to ignore their scheme to expose Him as a traitor of the law of Moses and ruin His reputation with the public. In their belief that they had finally caught Him in a double bind, just as they had managed to catch this woman that He loved in such a way as to totally humiliate and destroy her, they pushed their question even harder in growing anticipation of how soon they would be able to stone Him along with the woman. They were sure they would soon be able to eliminate two of the people who were causing them the most embarrassment and ruining their own influence with the common people.

The rest of the onlookers also were likely puzzled by Jesus' behavior. They may have had mixed feelings as well about why He was pushing dust around with His finger. But evidently either they were not standing close enough to make out what He was writing or most of them may have been illiterate to make out what He was writing. But I am certain that their curiosity must have been heightened as they waited in suspenseful anticipation of how this 'sting operation' was going to play out in front of everyone.

The text makes it very clear that this was fully intended to be as public as possible. It states twice that they were in the center. The words of the court are added by the translators so we cannot be totally certain that this is where it all took place. However, the word center is the main point made here indicating that what was taking place was the main attraction and was as centrally located as possible so as to amplify the effect of what the Jewish leaders wanted to accomplish.

But in trying to trap God into being humiliated and judged by human traditions, rules and interpretations of God's laws, these men had made a mistake. It seems so silly from heaven's point of view for mere humans to think that their wisdom could outsmart God. These men, like most of us today still do, relied mostly on human perspectives of justice based on our 'fear and punishment' models designed to control the behavior of others. Heaven's justice system is so different than ours that we seldom only catch a hint of how things really are from that perspective, and when we do we find it both confusing and even enraging based on what we have been taught to value most.

But in setting up Jesus to betray Himself into their hands, they actually ended up setting up the perfect trap to fall into themselves. Jesus could have maximized the effect of embarrassing them publicly just as they were attempting to do to Him, however, true to heaven's ways of seeking to save all instead of pushing any away from God, Jesus dealt just as kindly and discreetly with these hypocrites and self-righteous sinners just as delicately as He handled the woman caught in adultery. By writing out a list of the accuser's own heinous sins in the dust where only they could read them instead of publicly exposing them for all to scorn, Jesus sought to reach their hearts with His kindness so as to draw them to repentance if at all possible.

And how did Jesus accomplish this? By the same means that He does everything to bring about our reconciliation with God. He stooped down. When He was attacked, accused, humiliated, shamed and tested, He simply humbled Himself. This is made clear in Philippians 2 where it describes the whole mission strategy of Jesus to redeem fallen humanity. All the way from the throne of God to suffering the most shameful and painful death more hideous than any human being has ever experienced, Jesus humbled Himself to accomplish our salvation, the restoration of our trust in our heavenly Father. He stooped down from the throne, He stooped down as a man and He kept stooping down in each situation for the purpose of revealing the truth about how God feels about sinners and how much God wants us to be reunited with Him in trust and love and confidence.

By stooping down He positions Himself strategically to be able to lift us up from beneath because we are powerless to lift ourselves out of the deep deceptions about reality and about God's attitudes toward us that keep us blinded and afraid of Him. By His revelations of how God really feels about us He lifts our minds out of the gutters and filth of lies about God that blanket the whole earth. But showing us the Father Jesus establishes a human model by which we can begin to perceive the real truth about how much God really loves us and wants us back into full fellowship with Himself. Jesus was sent to save all who would allow Him to lift them out of the quagmire of lies about God and about ourselves and to redeem us from the trap of sin in which we are stuck.

Jesus stoops down so that we may stand up.