THE STONE OF JESUS ​​AND THE ANCIENT ROSE MOUTH THAT PUT LOVE ABOVE EVERYTHING

«There are those who make love out of boredom, who chooses it by profession, Bocca di Rosa neither one nor the other, she did it out of passion"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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There is a thread that ties Jesus' sentence listened to two Sundays ago: "If you don't convert, all perish in the same way » (LC 13, 3); to that, became famous, that we read in the Gospel of this Fifth Sunday of Lent: "Which one of you is without sin, be the first to throw the stone at her ". It is the theme of mercy, masterfully represented by Jesus in the parable of the Prodigal Son proclaimed instead last Sunday.

Today, left Luca, Let's read the Gospel of John, where we find a statement from Jesus that explains the passage about the adulterous woman well:

«God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but for the world to be saved through him" (GV 3,17).

After many clashes with his opponents, finally these bring to Jesus a concrete case that intersects a social sin, adultery. They know that his teaching focuses on openness to sinners, he ate with them, he has already said to the paralytic "Sin no more" (GV 5,14), yet they insist on testing him, so much so that this openness of Jesus will become one of the reasons for his condemnation. Let's read the Gospel.

«Jesus set out towards the Mount of Olives. But in the morning he went again to the temple, and all the people came to him. And he sat down and began to teach them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery, they placed it in the middle and said to him: “Maestro, this woman was caught in adultery. now Moses, in the Law, He commanded us to stone such women. What do you think?”. They said this to test him and to have reason to accuse him. But Jesus bent down and began to write with his finger on the ground. However, because they insisted on questioning him, he stood up and told them: “Who among you is without sin, be the first to throw a stone at her.". E, bent down again, He wrote on the ground. Those, heard it, they went away one by one, starting with the older ones. They left him alone, and the woman was there in the middle. Then Jesus stood up and said to her: “Donna, where am I? Has no one condemned?”. And she answered: "Nobody, Man". And Jesus said: “I don't condemn you either; go and sin no more from now on" (GV 8,1-11).

The text is complex — since ancient times it has posed problems of textual criticism due to its absence in the most important manuscripts — also due to the cultural distance that separates us from the themes expressed there, and in this way the interpretations have multiplied. Some, perhaps precisely because today's sensitivity has changed a lot compared to that ancient culture, they highlight the violence used towards women by those male men, in contrast to the kindness and attitude used by Jesus towards her. They wonder where the man who is also an adulterer is, whom the Law ordered to be put to death in the same way as the woman, if discovered (Dt 22, 22). They're not doing it, in this way, violence also against the Law, as well as the woman, those men who push her in the middle, there in front of everyone, then in the Temple, in order to frame Jesus?

For someone else it is likely not true adultery, but of a specious use of Jesus' words to put him in difficulty. These words are found in Mt 5, 31-32:

«It was also said: «Whoever repudiates his wife, give her the writ of repudiation". But I tell you: whoever divorces his wife, except in the case of illegitimate union, exposes her to adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman, commits adultery".

According to what Jesus says in Matthew the repudiation of his wife, although admitted by the Torah (Dt 24, 1-4) by means of a divorce decree, however, it exposes the divorced woman to adultery. The divorce document was intended to limit male agency and to grant it to the woman, after the separation, the possibility of remarrying without being accused of adultery. Jesus then said in the Sermon on the Mount: «Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish, but to fully fulfill " (Mt 5, 17). Therefore in those difficult words reported above we at least understand that for Jesus divorce is an act that goes against love for one's wife, exposing her to adultery. According to this interpretation it is possible that that woman thrown there in the middle was actually a remarried divorcee and according to those scribes and Pharisees she could not be reprobated, but since they learned that Jesus advanced that new hermeneutic of the Law, they use it to "test" him (cf.. GV 8, 6; Mt 19, 3). They thus demonstrate that they care more about chance and don't care about the person; perverting the teaching of Jesus they had already put their hands to stones to stone her. Thus comments Saint Augustine: «They were interested in the adulteress, and in the meantime they lost sight of themselves".

The gospel passage opens with the note of Jesus going to the Temple to teach a large crowd. Indeed the text says that "all the people" (GV 8,2) went to him. We also find a similar note in Luke:

«During the day Jesus taught in the Temple; at night he went out and spent the night outdoors on the mountain of olive trees. And all the people went to him in the Temple early in the morning to listen to him" (LC 21,37-38).

Jesus carries out a daily teaching activity in the Temple which probably generates annoyance and for this reason is interrupted suddenly and violently by some. Jesus distances himself from these, avoiding face to face with them; thus while it is twice underlined that the woman is among this group of people (vv. 3 e 9), it is also repeated twice that Jesus bends down to the ground to write (vv. 6 e 8). We don't know if he wanted to express solidarity towards the weakest, experiencing in her own body what she is experiencing, but this gesture certainly has a theological value. Let's retrace the various passages of the text. Jesus bends down for the first time and writes on the ground with his finger (v. 6), scribes and Pharisees insist on questioning him; then he stands up and speaks to them saying: "Let the one who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" (v. 7). Immediately afterwards Jesus bends down again for the second time, He writes on the ground (v. 8), the scribes and Pharisees leave one by one, starting with the older ones and leaving Jesus alone with the woman (v. 9), then Jesus gets up (v. 10) and says to the woman: "go and sin no more" (v. 11). It's here, in all probability, a reference to the Old Testament, to the episode of Moses' double ascension to Mount Sinai where he twice receives the tablets of the Law "written by the finger of God" (Is 31,18). In that case Moses came down from the mountain for the first time and broke the tablets of the Law because the people were transgressing them with the sin of the golden calf (Is 32, 19). He ascends again and receives the tablets rewritten a second time together with the revelation of the name of the merciful and forgiving God.:

«The Lord passed before him, proclaiming: "The Sir, the Sir, Merciful and merciful God, slow to anger and rich in love and faithfulness, who preserves his love for a thousand generations, who forgives the guilt, transgression and sin..." (Is 34, 1-9).

So Jesus, with his gesture of bending, write and get up twice, seems to allude, mimetically, to the gift of the Law given twice, a Law that already contained the gift of mercy and forgiveness, so much so that the alliance in the eyes of the Lord God is not canceled by man's sin. Now it's Jesus, in the New Covenant, which reveals divine mercy and forgiveness, since in both cases where Jesus stands up and speaks uttering words that have to do with sin, of the scribes and Pharisees first and then of the woman, which has already been forgiven, even if he will tell her eventually: "Neither do I condemn; go and from now on don't sin anymore ". Jesus asks the woman to assume responsibility, therefore he sends her demonstrating trust in her. The fact then that in our text bending down precedes getting up unlike the story of Moses who first ascended and then descended at Sinai, it is a reference to the fundamental event of the incarnation of the Word who first descended and then was raised in glory: «He who descended is the same who also ascended above all the heavens, to be the fullness of all things" (Ef 4,10). In the mystery of Christ he reveals himself, so, the face of the Father God rich in mercy, according to the evangelical expression already mentioned initially: «God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but for the world to be saved through him" (GV 3,17).

Beyond any possible interpretation John's text 8,1-11 states that God's mercy becomes practice in Jesus. The words of Saint Augustine commenting on the meeting between the Lord and the adulteress have remained famous:

«Only the two of them remained: misery and mercy (miserable and Mercy)».

Words that also struck Pope Francis who wrote:

«He couldn't [St. Augustine] find a more beautiful and coherent expression than this to make people understand the mystery of God's love when he comes to meet the sinner" (Apostolic Letter Mercy and misery of the Holy Father Francis at the conclusion of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, 2016).

Rightly the liturgy on this Sunday it makes us pray:

«O Lord who sent your only begotten Son not to condemn but to save the world, forgive all our faults, so that the song of gratitude and joy may flourish in the heart".

From the Hermitage, 5 April 2025

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