By Reverend Herbert Nichols

On television the other day, a man was telling how every Friday he would drive to the airport, get in his plane and fly out to the county, where he would be met by his wife and driven to their house on the lake. One day she suggested they could save considerable time and expense by putting platoons on the plane and landing on the lake; so the following Monday he had the arrangements made. On Friday, he drove to the airport, boarded his plane and began to descend at the airport as usual until the control tower notified him, he had no wheels and could not land.

Immediately pulling up, he turned for the lake and made a safe descent. Thinking to himself: That had to be one of the most stupid things I have ever done; he opened the cockpit, and again forgetting the platoons, fell into the lake. Maybe these were the first signs of Alzheimer’s; but we are all creatures of habit that are difficult to change.

As we enter these last two weeks of Lent, sometimes still referred to as Passion time in which we reflect on the last days of Jesus earthly life; there is also another focus, that of compassion and new life.

In today's gospel, it is not really the woman who is on trial. What happens to her is clearly inconsequential. She is being used and humiliated -- her private sins made public before for the sake of a precious argument. It is Jesus who is on trial. He is the enemy, the heretic, the threat to the Pharisees and scribes who consider themselves the holders of God's prophecies and promises

We can imagine Jesus looking at them as they roughly push her forward, her eyes bent to the ground piercing in shame like a laser. We can imagine the crowd hushed and tense waiting to see and hear what will happen next. The trap is set to prove that Jesus is not who he claims to be -- asking him a question that forces him to spare the woman and deny the validity of their interpretation of Mosaic law.

The silence of Jesus must have been deafening as the crowd waits, the wind brushes through the trees. Jesus bends down to doodle in the sand. The scribes and Pharisees rattle on, persisting, making fools of themselves Then Jesus stands and utters these immemorial words: Let the person among you who has no sin be the first to cast a stone. Then he stooped and continued to doodle while beginning with the eldest, the wisest, the most experienced, one by one they walked away. They did not condemn her because she had only been a tool for them

Finally we hear the compassionate words of Jesus: No one had condemned her and neither would he; but he did not excuse her or dismiss her as having no account. Rather he asked for her repentance.

We do not know this woman's name, or what happened to her. Though some have claimed that this woman was Mary Magdalene or even Mary of Bethany, there really is no evidence to identify her. With certainty she is a distinct person with her own history and her own life; yet, she is also symbolic of every person who stands in need of compassion. She is you, me, all of us.

She could have very well uttered the words written by Paul and read to us today: "I have come to rate all as loss in the un-surpassing knowledge of my Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing else means anything. It is not that I have attained perfect maturity but I continue in my pursuit in hope that I may possess it .... I give no thought now to what lies behind, but I hope -- I trust that I may arrive at the resurrection from the dead."

If this woman walked away repentant and never turned back, then we also see the truth of the first reading from Isaiah applied both to her and to us: Remember not the events of the past, of long ago, or even yesterday, There is a choice to be made -- to turn to new beginnings or to remain complacent with the way things always are --"like slaves of our own pharaohs" -- we can continue to dwell on the dark times or put our trust in the Lord.

Repentance is a relational action -- it requires two; one to repent and another to grant repentance (forgiveness) God, who is the giver is never the problem. God freely chooses to make his people righteous and holy; but such a gift can only be accepted in faith. God's heart is not made of stone; but our own stony' hearts must crack open to receive God's forgiveness to flow.

See I am doing something new. You are the people whom I form for myself that you might announce my praise. Praise for God is the result and vocalization of deliverance. No longer do God's people cry out an mourn from Egypt or the Sinai desert like in the readings of the past two weeks.