Riffin on the Evidentness of the Evidence

8 Unbelief of the Jewish Leaders

1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

The hour of redemption…was to perpetually be at hand…

In Chapter 8 of John we find Jesus being tested in the temple courts on behalf of the Jewish leaders who doubt his spiritual legitimacy. Pitted against “the law” of “Moses” which, we are left to assume, faithful dedication to ensures redemption…in heaven, by way of an earned eternal life, Jesus appears to be tasked with shattering the illusion propagated by a local devotional tradition, the Temple Courts and their various ways, that what they’re doing is a meaningful extension of Moses’ very work. The framing is as such that while the local leaders are skeptical of his legitimacy, he could only ever prove it them by invalidating their normative approach to a tradition that is ultimately tasked with instilling effective mystical methods in the entire adult populace, after instilling within them the normative worldview in the first place (we are tasked with teaching people to transcend the very frameworks we habituate them into). It’s also very easy to read it as such, given the scenario, that those of the Temple Courts, at times, feel as if their very canon is perhaps silly/incomplete, given the example they choose to drum up regarding female adultery and Moses’ law, and they might be alluding to their work as a necessary thing, something which was able to take a primitive law and adapt it for a non-primitive world, and while all of this is relatable and often times is utterly functional, it never encapsulates the reality of Moses’ generation, who were certainly as competent and forced to be as respectful as us, by universal dynamics. As these faithful leaders challenge the wandering nomad, they themselves can’t help but to read as if they have some distaste for their very chosen prophet/Father, as if nothing ever has ever been all of that whole or beautiful…

The hour of redemption…was to perpetually be at hand…

And throwing rocks at a woman for cheating is like piling it on, after assuredly it had been piled on elsewhere in a million other unfair ways…people, especially women, are inherently loyal… it’s hard to give general advice regarding these sorts of serious scenarios…we don’t know if the woman is really to blame, even. Jesus tells her that she is not condemned and to “leave her life of sin” but that may allude to the very marriage, and that might be the entire reason a woman in that sort of culture would commit adultery…the only reason, possibly… one needs to ask whether she was even allowed to simply end it, or if she already had years ago… we never get the story here, and it’s fun to imagine the million potentially scandalous scenarios because the inherent game here is wholesome- don’t pass judgement, merely offer assistance.

He could’ve been a perfect husband and she could’ve been a real scoundrel too. But even then, if that isn’t her actual cosmic partner, that’s a life of sin, technically for both of them…and that’s also to a really good example of why sin should largely be dropped as a paradigm once someone accepts that there is a universal objective large enough to entirely shape the lives of individuated beings (also to, this validates certain divorces while also invalidating those very marriages if they were recognized by the church [if you understand how they think about marriage and divorce] and it was the tension of this institution, their unwillingness to make romantic mis-steps while young and still on the way to the idyllic marriage, which ended them in our culture?). At that point its about resonance/intelligence…it’s about Oneness. Salvation is actually guaranteed dynamically in the short hand and the only reason we have to give these long speeches is because few people can understand it from the short hand. The speaking is the actual seeding of it/doing of it socially though, so…

Y’know, you only ever enter a life of sin communally, and you only ever hobble out of it very much scathed, very much aware that you are the Batman, basically alone…and that’s crap. They keep doing that. The subtext of this is if you are socially understood/condemned, it’s very difficult to become what you should become because society itself sucks at producing it, but is great at producing angry mobs. This isn’t true of children, only adults. It’s the bane of our existence(s).

You are God. One with Christ. That woman who had just committed adultery, at best in grace because it was a total shot in the dark/ineffective coping mechanism…is looking Jesus Christ in the eye there. There’s a line on the ground, and I’m sure it still eludes to personal journeys of self-improvement, but the literal lesson he just gave is that it doesn’t divide them. That’s the real lesson, even the sinners ((presumably they are all just trying to “live” and so we find ourselves on a Mount of “Olives” [“I’ll-live! I’ll DO IT] )) are just right there, in the mix. But that…was the action of Jesus in his capacity as a servant/Messiah. Just as he decided this woman’s fate in the temple…these things shape entire lives…He saved her.

The craziest thing I could say here is…dynamism insinuates that Jesus had to. He was sent to save, and we were told redeems all in each unfolding, and it’s about consciously recognizing as much…such is time…the hour of redemption is perpetually at hand, and yet suffering still exists in its midst, and we can further sow the seeds of redemption to the tune of eradicating it pervasively at each and every moment. Across time, truly, nothing is insurmountable, and the pace is increasing.

   Allow me to simply bathe you in the soft, American light of unconditional love…