Presented as a dramatic presentation in Markham Baptist Church, April 6, 2003.

based on the text: John 8:2-11

A SINNER MEETS THE MASTER

Listen… listen… Do you hear those words? Do you see how they whisper and stare? I am not liked at all in these parts. They call me “the home-wrecker”, “a Jezebel”, “the adulteress”. Adulteress!  How that name used to sting my heart… but no more! Let me tell you an amazing story!

I grew up in a typical Jewish household, with a mother and a father, many brothers and sisters. We were all taught to obey the laws of Moses - the word of God – we also learned of the punishment that was to be ours if we did not obey these laws.

When I was still very young, very innocent, I was rudely introduced to the “ways of the world” by a man I hardly knew. Sex was not something that we ever spoke about in our household – I did know that when I was older I was promised to be some man’s wife and was to bear him his children, but how or what or when that was to be, I did not understand. When this happened to me as a child, I did not know what it was, but knew only that it was something bad, something shameful, and that I was to speak to no one about it.

I had just turned 13 when I was presented as a wife to this man to whom I had been promised. Oh yes, there was great anticipation and celebration in this event, for he believed that he was to receive this great prize of value and honour - a young virgin who was pure, and was to be for him only.

When he found out that it was not so, he was very angry, and was so disappointed at our union, but because he wished to bring no dishonour to my family and no embarrassment to himself, we did not speak of it outside our household. But I tell you, from that very day I was not treated with any respect as his wife... and I did not believe that I deserved to be so. In order to avoid his displeasure and to try to win his favour, I quickly learned how to please him in all that he desired and gave myself to him at his will.

The other women of the household told me that this was just how it was to be; that I should be so happy that he had not cast me out into the streets; that I was his, to be what he wanted when he wanted … I should learn to like it. I tried to be a good wife... but deep within there was this growing darkness, knowing that I was not what he had expected me to be, and could never be. And so the darkness grew into a deep disappointment in myself, which grew into such loneliness and emptiness… which turned to bitterness, and then to anger.

As I came into my full womanhood I found that though I was not treasured in my own household, there were many, many men who freely offered to "treasure" me. I had a way that was very seductive and it was so easy - these men were drawn to me like moths to a flame. I took great pleasure in the power I had to please them, as I won their favour by becoming an object of their obsessive desires. Yes, how quickly my passion always faded and so I continually sought someone new to re-kindle that flame, to somehow fill a growing void, and so I earned the name of “adulteress”.

Those women, they despised me, and as those men leered and then sneered their names at me, I took an angry pride in the power of that name of “adulteress”. The more they tried to put me down, the more I seized that power to win another to my bed, to triumph in another conquest, to rejoice!... to rejoice at someone else’s downfall.

But then, my life was truly changed – it was the day I was caught in my own sin and I was to die.

I had been found with a man who was not my husband, and was confronted by those who despised me and condemned me for my sin, as they picked up large stones to bring me to my death, as it was to be, according to the law of Moses.

The names they called me... “adulteress”, “Jezebel”, “man-eater”, “bed-hopper”, “prostitute”, “slut”,  … “WHORE”!

As I waited to feel the crush of that first stone as it was to bruise my skin, it was those names that were crushing me in the core of my soul… for I knew that those WERE my names, they now exposed my shame in all my sin, and I knew I was now to pay for them with my life.

But before any stone was cast, I looked down to see the feet of one I had not met before. As I looked up, I gazed into the eyes of no man I had ever known before.

He turned to the others and He said, "Let He who is without sin cast that first stone!"

Somehow I knew that he was the one that they called Messiah – the lamb without blemish, a man without sin. His intense gaze was not upon my seductive eyes – he did not see my shape or form as a woman. Yet somehow he could see through the flesh, into my heart, into my very soul – somewhere I had let no one before, yet there he could see the sadness, the emptiness, the pain, the shame in all my sin.

And I knew that He alone may be the only one who could cast that first stone and so it would be he who would condemn me to my death. Yet he looked at me and said: "Woman, who here has condemned you?"

"Master, there is no one."

"Then neither do I! My child, go - and sin no more!"

I was not to die? He had set me free - the one who had NEVER sinned was setting ME, the worst of sinners, free?!! He had said “go”, and all I was to do for that freedom was to sin no more? I did not have to pay for any of all that sin? I was amazed, I was so grateful, and yet … I was so afraid – for how could I, the one who knew only how to live a life of sin, of shame - how could I obey Him and sin no more?

But as I followed this man that they called Jesus, and watched as He taught His disciples, listened as He preached to the crowds - I saw how He changed people’s lives. I learned that it would He who would be walking there right beside me as a shepherd to guide me, to light this new path that I was now to choose. If I were to stumble and fall (as I knew I surely would!) all I had to do was to call out His name - just as that fallen lamb mournfully cries to its master and waits for its rescue… He would be there to lift me back up – with His grace and His mercy to restore me back on to this chosen path.

I listened as He rebuked His own disciples to let those little children come close to Him. He said that we are all to come to the Father as children – it is their faith that is to be our model, and so we should bring them close and watch - how they love; how they trust... how they forgive... and as He said that, I realized that it was there, in my own childhood, that I had thrown down my faith, in anger and in distrust, and it was there that I now had to pick it up.

And so as if a child again, I learned, step by step, word by word, the real power and the awesome wonder of this Father’s love for me, that He would forgive ALL my sin, and so from that day I have chosen to live a life that I have tried to keep free from sin, and full of forgiveness, though only through His ongoing forgiveness in my life every day. But yes, He had set me free - from that life that I had lived before.

But though I had found such joy in this new life and was set free, I found that I still wore the soiled, tattered rags of my past as that impure woman and I could not get them off. It had been through the stain of my own sin and the sins of others, that I had never been a true bride... never to stand before her chosen lover, pure and whole. In this new life now I continually grieved that loss, and so wore the unwashable stain of all my sin like a mark of my unholiness among all those others.

But then, there He stood before me once again - the resurrected Jesus. And I knew then that I had not paid the price for any of my sin, only because it had been HE who had … by being nailed to a cross, to hang and die, for no sin of His own. Yet there He CHOSE to die, in my place, bearing the weight of all my sin. Oh, that I had chosen just ONCE not to sin, so that His burden had not been so great…

But in that act of overwhelming love for me, God removed forever that stain, the stench of all my sin, so that I now stand before you pure, without shame, for I am wrapped in His purity – standing as a bride stands before her betrothed, whole and unblemished; I had never been able to do that before, and I thought I never could. But I can now offer my love, and my life, without shame, without stain.

For I now know that He is mine, and I am His… from this day forward… to have and to hold… for richer, for poorer … in sickness and in health… BUT death - will - NOT - us - part… this is FOREVER!

I know there are still those who will continue to call me those names. I am sad for the past that I have had; I have bowed my head in humility as I have cried for forgiveness from all to whom I have done any wrong … but I now know that those names that they spit at me are no longer mine. For I have been cleansed - I am whole. Not because of anything I have done or said, but because my lover, my Jesus, has chosen me as He would a bride, wrapping me in His robe of righteousness, so that I am now worthy to be called His. And I am now known only by HIS name – NOT theirs.

I have met Him… He is real. He is here, in this room, as He waits to call you His one and only, the one whom He has so loved, that He chose to die, nailed to a cross, in YOUR place, bearing the weight of all YOUR sin. Please, take time now to share your confession of faith with Him, for He longs to whisper those words of unending love for you... and no matter what your sin… oh, no matter WHAT your sin, He HAS already washed you clean ... and now offers to make YOU whole – and will call you His… FOREVER.

He IS here… listen…. listen!

Copyright MBC and Susan Murphy - April 2003