5th Sunday of Lent - C 2025

“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

It is one of the more haunting lines in all of Scripture – and one of the most needed.  The sin of judgment is subtle and pervasive.  It slips into our thoughts, our conversations, our glances.  How easy it is to look down upon another for a poor decision, a sharp word, or a public failing.  And how difficult it is, in moments like those, to remember the Gospel, to remember mercy.

Yet Our Lord does not merely rebuke the tendency.  He shows us the remedy.

We must begin by making a careful distinction.  It is one thing to judge actions and quite another to judge persons.  Conscience demands that we make moral assessments – about words, choices, opinions, behaviors.  To refuse to do so would be to abandon reason itself, to silence the voice of right and wrong written in the heart.  But when we pass from evaluating conduct to condemning souls, we overstep our place.  “Judge not,” says our Lord, “lest you be judged.”  That is, do not presume to know the hidden motives and dispositions of another – how their mind was formed, what wounds shaped their will, what circumstances clouded their vision.

Would we have chosen better had we stood in their shoes?

At the root of a judgmental spirit lies pride – always pride.  It is the sin of the Pharisee who looks across the temple and thanks God that he is not like other men.  Pride blinds us to our own faults, giving us the illusion of superiority.  Pride is on full display in today’s Gospel.  The scribes and Pharisees, cloaked in the garb of moral indignation, had no real concern for the woman or for the Law.  They were setting a snare for Jesus.  If He excused her, He violated Moses.  If He condemned her, He risked the ire of Rome.  They thought they had Him.

But Our Lord answers not with a retort, but with a challenge: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  It is a devastating reply, not because it is clever, but because it is true.  To cast a stone is to claim innocence – to reveal one’s hidden pride and arrogance.  To withhold the stone is to admit guilt.  And so, they turn and walk away.

And here we come to one of the more puzzling and mysterious gestures of our Lord: Jesus stoops down and writes in the dust.  We aren’t told what He writes.  But St. Thomas Aquinas suggests that this act is itself a sign of humility – the Word made flesh bending to the ground, the Divine Teacher choosing silence rather than spectacle.  The lesson is not shouted.  I like to imagine that one of the Lord’s reasons for lowering Himself was so that He might look up into the woman’s face.  Although the text doesn’t say, surely she stood there with eyes cast downward, ashamed, unable to meet the gaze of another.  And yet Christ stoops – not to avert His eyes, but so that He might look into hers with a glance full of mercy and reassurance.

When the crowd disperses, Jesus speaks to the woman – not with a harsh rebuke, but with mercy: “Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and sin no more.”  He acknowledges the sin.  He does not explain it away or pretend that her sin was harmless.  But neither does He crush her beneath it.  This is what divine mercy looks like – not the erasure of moral truth, but the embrace of the sinner who is called to begin again.

Now here we must ask a deeper question: How can God be both just and merciful?  Justice, after all, demands that sin be punished.  Mercy forgives.  Wouldn’t these cancel each other out?

No – because of the Cross.

Justice requires that what is broken be mended, that what is owed be repaid.  Sin is not a scratch to be buffed out.  It is a rupture in our relationship with God.  But it is God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, who bears the cost.  He takes our guilt upon Himself.  He becomes the Lamb, slain for our sins.  On Calvary, justice and mercy meet – not in tension, but in perfect harmony.  The justice of God is not bypassed – it is satisfied.  And in that very act, mercy flows.

So when you find yourself tempted to judge – to look down on another, to dismiss or condemn – remember the Cross.  Remember that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” as St. Paul says.  Remember that every virtue you possess is a grace received, not a merit earned.

Look to Christ.  Learn from His humility.  Ask Him to give you eyes that see as He sees: with clarity, yes, but also with compassion.

He does not ignore sin.  But neither does He throw stones.