Dust to Dust

  The story goes: The Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who had been caught in adultery. The Law demanded she be stoned to death. “They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger.”  John 8:6

  Eventually, Jesus responded to the Pharisees’ demands he make a decision on how this woman was to be treated. Would he honour the Law or not?

  This woman ended up saved because Jesus said one of his most famous quotes, “All right, but let the one who is without sin cast the first stone!” v7

 

  Sometimes Jesus is portrayed as having drawn a line in the dust which, I think, is where the expression, “crossing the line” came from. (I could be wrong.) Regardless of what Jesus actually wrote with his finger, I find the significance of this chosen medium rather intriguing.

  Dust is a poor thing to write anything in. The wind, a rain shower, a careless footstep, or even the brush of a hand will wipe it out completely.

  I’ve drawn in the dust a few times as an idle way to pass the time. I’ve also done sand doodles because it is fun to do on a sandy beach as the sun shines down and the water laps at my heels. The best sand is the wet stuff on an ocean beach. Like sandcastles, the incoming tide will obliterate its existence. That’s half the fun!

  Why did Jesus do this?

  Hmmm…The Law of Moses was handed down in written form through the generations. Was Jesus’ writing in the dust a foreshadowing of what his life and death and life would bring about? That the Law would become no more significant than writing in the dust?

  No, that’s not it. I’ve said many times Jesus uses the Law as a jumping off point in lessons about love. At the same time, he has set us free of having to live according to the Law.

  Perhaps he was demonstrating to the Pharisees how quickly they obliterate obedience to the Law for the sake of power.

  Now I am totally confused this morning. One of the great Commandments Moses brought down from the mountain says “Thou shalt not kill.” Yet elsewhere in the Law are commands that bring about the death of an adulterer, although stoning isn’t a direct way to kill someone. Was this so no one would know who threw the final stone therefore absolving everyone from the sin of taking a life?

  Maybe that’s the significance of Jesus writing in the dust. The Law can be manipulated to serve human purposes. It’s why and how Jesus died because the Pharisees did a pick and choose about which Law to honour. Pontius Pilate became their stone.

  And I am reminded as well how many times those who profess to be Christians manipulate God’s Word for their own purposes. It’s a grim history: the Inquisition, fraudulent Televangelists, the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their homes…

  Jesus’ writing in the dust serves as a warning for all of us.

  But it also fills me with hope because Jesus has been writing his message of love in the dust of my heart. And that, my friends, is permanent. AMEN!