They didn’t like her, and they really hated him!
This story happened in the temple. It was early morning, yet Jesus could draw a crowd whenever he would teach. Jesus’ popularity was upsetting and quietly infuriating to the religious elite; they had come to despise him.
So “they” intruded into the study group that was fixed upon every word Jesus spoke. Forcefully thrust into the center at Jesus’ feet was a person they didn’t like: a woman caught in the act of adultery.
They didn’t bring the man in — just the woman, because they didn’t like her. She was just a tool they chose to use.
They probably knew what she and the man had been doing for some time. But because they really hated Jesus and didn’t like her, they used her to as an entrapment to somehow compromise Jesus.They demanded a right judgment from Jesus!
Whenever people choose to be driven by their dislike, even hatred, for someone else, the capacity for any hope is lost. It is zero. That is true for both the disliked and the driven.
To be motivated by hatred is a trap door into discontent and personal disaster. Hope for a restored relationship of respect and good will is imprisoned. Dislike engulfs like a huge black hole. It downgrades character and really looks ugly.
This incident during Jesus’ ministry was orchestrated by jealousy toward Jesus because of the positive impact he was having on people. Such actions come from emotions stirred by the lie that only certain people matter (the people you like, agree with and who agree with you), and any means is justifiable to discredit and destroy those who are making a positive difference in people’s lives. It is a pit of hopelessness for both the hated and the haters.
Jesus taught in Matthew 12:34-37, “… For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks … I tell you, ‘on the day of judgement people will give account for every careless word they speak …”
How are dislike and hatred reeled in? One person at a time. Each person choosing to consider Jesus’ way to live.
The people in the temple on that one day came to hear Jesus. What they would hear from him would transform their hearts into catalysts of hope and not sowers of dislike and hatred.
On that day, Jesus moved the hope needle for the woman from zero to 100 percent.
David Woods is a teaching pastor at Park Chapel Christian Church in Greenfield. This weekly column is written by local clergy members.
