Morning Devotional

November  15, 2005
"The Healer"       
    by Don Emmitte

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Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and Pharisees brought a woman they had caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. "Teacher," they said to Jesus, "this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?" 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. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, "All right, stone her. But let those who have never sinned throw the first stones!" (John 8:1-7 NLT).

Religious people can be so quick to judge. Maybe because they so badly need to affirm their fragile righteousness, I don't know. What I do know is that Jesus wasn't like that.

When I watch hurting, sinful people come to Jesus, I am amazed to see the gentleness with which he treats them. Blind people came to him and went away seeing. Friends and relatives carried cripples to him. He was their friend. He never turned them away or rejected them. Instead, in his presence they were healed. Rich-robed leaders seeking to fill an inner emptiness came to talk with Jesus. So did ragged beggars.

The lady of our reading today was dragged to Jesus. You know the story. Earlier that morning she had been surprised in the arms of her lover, and hauled in front of Jesus while he was teaching in the temple. "Should we stone her for adultery?" the Pharisees sneered, hoping to expose Jesus' legendary mercy. "Let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone," Jesus replied. And when they had all slunk away, one by one, Jesus knelt down to where the woman was crouching. "Where are your accusers?" he asked. "Gone," she said. "Then I don't pronounce sentence upon you either," he told her. As she got up to leave, I can see him touching her sleeve, as if to give her a final healing word. "Go," he said, "and sin no more."

What gentleness! What love! Without compromising right standards of living, Jesus had communicated an incredible amount about how much God loves us, aches for us, longs for us, and gently calls us to paths of wholeness and wholesomeness. No self-righteousness here, not even from the only One who has any right to the term "self-righteous." Just compassion.

Do you need him? Do you feel messed up or ashamed or confused or lonely or just plain tired of it all? You are his kind of person. Jesus knows your pain, and reaches out a strong and friendly hand, and says to you, "Come to me, all you who are weak and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." If we serve a Healer, then we are called to be a healing people, unafraid of pain, even our own. We know that through his love and working in our midst, that ancient healing touch of the Living Jesus will touch again. With power.