She was pulled from the scene of her shame, the dimness meant to obscure her tryst from prying eyes replaced with blinding light as she was dragged into the street in early daylight. She attempted to shield her indecency with her robes, though any show at modesty would be criticized as a sham. Her lover had vanished. She was left alone to face the angry rumblings of a crowd insisting that women had been nothing but trouble since Eve’s misstep in the garden.
She stumbled along the street, roughly dragged by the Pharisees holding each arm. Head bowed, she fixated on the worn tassels dangling from their prayer shawls, and she wondered where they were taking her. Perhaps to the judicial court. Her heart fell. A woman’s testimony would stand for nothing. And what excuse could she offer?
She thought of her arranged marriage, the silence, and the way her husband avoided meeting her eyes. It mattered not. Heart racing, she willed away thoughts of the rumors she had heard of another loose woman’s fate. Her punishment has been awful—deserved, most had agreed, but awful.
When she finally looked up, peering through the veil of her matted hair, she was confused. They were not heading toward the court. They were going to the temple instead. She feared the Sanhedrin more than a judge. She could not face them, those pious men with faces gaunt from fasting. She could not bear to hear them quote Solomon, pontificating about a virtuous woman whose worth is more than rubies, when her own value had been lost entirely. She had failed in her central womanly role: to be a devoted wife. She added nothing to her husband’s reputation, and she would not bear children to continue his line. She was nothing—less than nothing.
The glittering outline of the temple gate loomed over her, and her chest tightened. This was the place where sacrifices were made. It would soon be over.
Intrigued bystanders called out to know what she had done. Upon hearing the reply, their voices hardened and they joined the crowd, clamoring to have righteous judgment enacted.
Women were not allowed within the inner court or the temple itself, but she knew they were crossing the grounds by the bleating of the sacrificial animals and the wafting smell of incense. Her parents had brought her here as a girl. How grieved they would be to learn of her visit today.
She was shoved to her knees, and someone roughly pulled on the back of her hair, forcing her head up. She expected to see a spiritual leader dressed in black with a regal headpiece, king-like in its positioning. He would insist she meet the same fate as other fallen women. “Both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death” (Leviticus 20.10b NIV). She had not committed her crime alone, but she appeared before her accusers alone, and she must face the penalty alone.
She blinked in the sunlight, but rather than seeing a regal disciplinarian, she gazed upon a man dressed in homespun. He wore nothing on his head, but the sun shone behind him, framing him. The harsh words of her accusers rang out, but her mind strayed, catching only snippets. Sinful woman. Caught in the act. The law of Moses.
She waited for the man to speak. Instead, he crouched until he was on her level, though she dared not catch his eye. He began tracing in the dirt. The woman watched as what appeared to be letters formed in the dust. She couldn’t make out their meaning from her vantage, and regardless, she could not read or write.
The Pharisees beside her had gone silent, seeming as perplexed as she or perhaps displeased what the man had written. Who was he? They called him teacher, but he was like no teacher she had ever seen. He wore humble attire, his eyes were kind, and she could see dirt beneath his fingernails, as if he was accustomed to connecting with the earth and what it produced and didn’t feel compelled to scour its presence from his.
The men began to grumble, insisting on the teacher’s answer. Finally, he rose, looking at their faces as if he knew each of their stories. The woman noticed a rock the size of her fist lying between them. Perhaps this would be the first blow, though certainly not the last. She adjusted her haphazard robe to reclaim some small bit of dignity, but as she clasped at the material, she could feel her hands trembling.
The teacher spoke over the crowd. “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he crouched again and wrote in the dust, as if he was so confident no stones would be thrown that he did not need to watch the scene dissolve.
Still kneeling, the woman saw the prayer tassels around her slowly sway to and fro as the men started to leave. Slowly, they trickled off, individually or in pairs, until no one was left. No one but her. And him.
“Where are your accusers?” The teacher stood again and addressed her. She could not contain her surprise. Rising to address the men was to be expected. Rising to speak to her was an anomaly. “Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
She struggled to find the right words. There was more in her heart than she could ever express. “No, Lord,” was all she could manage.
The teacher responded, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
At the mention of her sin, the woman sagged, feeling the weight of not just her recent indiscretion but all the years of her sinful humanity imprinted upon her. The tears rolled down her cheeks, streaking the dirt she had acquired being dragged to this holy place where she had been laid bare. The man’s hand gently lifted her chin, daring to touch what the others had deemed unclean, and she hesitantly looked up.
The man was not handsome, but he had a sincerity she had never before seen. He looked upon her without the lust she had seen in her lover’s eyes, without the judgment she had felt from her husband. He looked at her as if he had been watching her all her life but also as if he were seeing her for the first time. And then he nodded and walked away.
The woman breathed deeply and rose, then wandered slowly through the temple courtyard. Within the inner court, a teacher of the law was reading from Joshua about the defeat of Jericho, and as she paused to listen, it dawned on her that he was reading about Rahab. She had been a prostitute; she was sinful, but she was forgiven. The man continued reading, telling how Rahab and her family were spared and lived among the Israelites. Rahab’s story baffled her. How could a fallen woman ever be accepted? How could a scarlet cord colored by a ruddy past lead to a hopeful future?
There were so many unraveled threads in the tapestry of her own life—many of them crimson—that the woman was unsure how to go about setting them right. Yet she knew she wanted to turn from sin, not from fear of the Pharisees but because of that man in homespun. Her parents’ teaching came back to her. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Isaiah 1.18b NIV).
As she turned onto the street toward home, neighbors who had undoubtedly heard of her disgrace passed by. She automatically lowered her gaze. But she remembered she had been pardoned by the man with dirt beneath his fingernails. She was not proud of her past, but it did not define her. True cleanliness resided beneath her dust and bruises. So, she held up her head, just as the man had lifted it in the temple courtyard, and she looked forward. The teacher had given her very life back to her. Yet it was his forgiveness that made her feel it might be worth living.
Author’s note: This story of forgiveness was inspired by John 8, and creative liberties have been taken in its retelling.
The featured image, “Rosa Glauca Hips,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.
Charity Gibson is a Christ follower, writer, and professor. She holds a PhD in Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and teaches literature and composition at College of the Ozarks (located near Branson, MO.)
She and her husband are raising four children and enjoy spending time together reading, being outside, and fellowshipping with extended family and friends. Charity is the author of The Working Homemaker: Employed Christian Moms Desiring a Thriving Homelife and regularly writes about topics pertaining to faith and family. She also hosts a monthly blog through her website.
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