I’ve also been thinking about the story of the woman caught in adultery in Matthew 8. It occurred to me to try and imagine what her life would have been had she not been outed. The religious leaders that dragged her, possibly naked, into the public arena of the temple where they knew Jesus would be, had precisely ZERO good intentions. They didn’t care about the law, they were misusing the law – after all, where was the dude? No justice there.
They didn’t care about her reform or status or situation in life (likely a prostitute – with no other means of survival). They were fully intent on trapping Jesus with what they thought would present Him an impossible call, and used force, shame, power and the perversion of justice to bring this to a head.
Very not fair.
Outrageous in fact.
So they brought her, guilty as charged, totally shamed before her community for either a judgement of death on her, or a means to create hatred and dissent toward Jesus.
And they failed.
In the end it seems everyone but Jesus and the woman left that place with a measure of shame. The leaders themselves caught in their own trap and the woman though guilty, was freed from her condemnation and shame.
What an incredible collision of intentions, actions and people.
How different her life must have been after that day.
What would her life have been had this most climactic and terrible event NOT happened.
The other day a friend said this “… I don’t see God leading us into indiscriminate tempting, but more so that he allows us into an environment that unearths what’s already in our hearts, and it’s done in order to be delivered from evil. When I lie and cheat or whatever I do, it will eventually lead me into an environment I do not like.”
She certainly wound up in an environment she didn’t like… via the mode of her sin… via the mode of cruel men who treated her as a commodity and a means to their own goals – yet God was bringing about her freedom. Amazing.
It’s a classic example of “what Satan intended for evil, God intended for good.”
This was the long way round to the question of – how can we imagine her life would have been different had all those circumstances not collided the way they did?
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John 8:1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came to the temple courts again. All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. 3 The experts in the law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught committing adultery. They made her stand in front of them 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery 5 In the law Moses commanded us to stone to death such women. What then do you say?” 6 (Now they were asking this in an attempt to trap him, so that they could bring charges against him.) Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger. 7 When they persisted in asking him, he stood up straight and replied, “Whoever among you is guiltless may be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Then he bent over again and wrote on the ground. 9 Now when they heard this, they began to drift away one at a time, starting with the older ones, until Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up straight and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” 11 She replied, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”