Forgiving is the key

By: Mukul Sharma

Most people are familiar with the story of Jesus and the adulteress, but for those who came in late, here’s a recap. Seems like when he was teaching in a temple, a bunch of Pharisees came in with a woman they claimed had been caught in the act of adultery.

They said that according to Moses, she had to be stoned to death and wanted to know what the latest Messiah’s take on it was. After a while, Jesus said, sure, go ahead, but remember, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

So, following a sudden bout of hand-wringing, the Pharisees began slinking out till Jesus was left alone with the woman. As if noticing her for the first time, he asked, “Hey, what happened to all the people who were condemning you?” The woman, who had purportedly cheated on her husband, replied, “No one’s doing that any more, Lord.”

There’s still an important last sentence left to complete the parable, but before that, it might be interesting to speculate what Christ would have done if the Pharisees had, instead, hauled in before him the persons who’ve cheated on cricket at the recent IPL.

Because, if he said the same thing he did the last time, it would not only make honesty sound old-fashioned but constitute a complete mockery of criminal justice.

Anyway, the left-out sentence begins like this, And Jesus told the woman, “I don’t condemn you either.” Does that mean he didn’t think the Seventh Commandment was a big deal and was proactively going against Moses who had got it directly from God? Not really, because this is how the sentence ends, “Go, and sin no more.”