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Tuesday 12 June 2012

Adultress

Here I am for your pleasure-
Enjoy my humiliation,
Savor my degradation,
Even though I asked for it,
Chose this slow agonising death
in the name of love,
by way of trust
And you watched with your lustful eyes,
Dragged me with your greedy hands,
Relish the sight of me-
Wretched, shamed, uncovered,
before I die.

There are sandals on the ground beside me,
A pair of dusty feet,
He kneels, graceful,
in this place of torment,
And with a pointing finger scribes
on the parched, barren sand beneath my gaze
A cross.

He stands before me, shielding me,
Risen, he remonstrates,
His voice of authority, challenging,
Warning, convincing
and I drown in the peace of it,
and I look at
the cross,
His cross.

They are gone and
I am forgiven,
I am free,
Free to seek his face
as he tenderly looks at the person I was
and who I will be.
I see him
Who has taken my death from me,
Who has felt my pain,
and given me life again,
I see him, beautiful, my Saviour.


(An interpretation of the story of the woman caught in adultery, found in the Bible gospel of John chapter 8, verses 1-11.)

copyright Josephine Collett 2012

What did Jesus write in the sand? John provided this little detail in his account, and there is no little detail in the Bible not given for a purpose or worthy of reflection. I personally like to think that it was something for the woman, as her eyes, more than anyone's, would have been on the ground. Given that many women at that time were uneducated and illiterate, maybe a cross would have been a message Christ gave to her.  I like to imagine so ( and was interested to discover Geoff Bullock, in his book "Hands of Grace"  postulated the same).Of course, we do not know. A friend of mine likes to think that Jesus was writing "Where is the man?"

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