Lent Week 5: Monday
BEAUTY RESTORED
The beautiful Susanna’s life almost ended in disaster as the lust, anger, and revenge of her evil accusers turned the people against her. And yet, through the mediation of Daniel who was full of wisdom, the real perpetrators of lies were exposed and put to shame and destruction. God has intervened to save the innocent.
In the Gospel, Jesus is confronted with a dilemma. A woman was brought to him after being accused of a serious offense, and she was clearly not as innocent as Susanna. And while it was easy for the young Daniel to defend the unjustly denounced innocent, how would Jesus act towards a guilty one to whom he was expected to proclaim a judgment?
Jesus did not entertain the anger of the crowd but instead wrote on the ground. Many speculations arose from this one instance the Lord was said to have written something. One interpretation has it that the Lord wrote the people’s sins on the ground, enough for them to feel guilty themselves and realize that as accusers, they were not impeccable as they thought they were.
And in fact, the Lord challenged anyone who had no sin to be the first to stone the woman to death. None did, and everybody slowly left, since all realized they had been merciless.
“Go and sin no more,” the Lord Jesus said to the woman. He freed her in this moment, but will free her still, and all of us, when he would not just write on the ground and defend us against the wrath of others, but by giving his own life on the Cross for us.
We are approaching Holy Week. Let us reflect on the Jesus hanging on the Cross to free us from the sins we really committed and from the death that should have been our lot, save for his grace. Let us reflect daily on the depth of his love, on his mercy.
(survey: do you want to see daily reflections in this coming Easter season, like what this website did for Lent? enough requests received, daily reflections continue; if not, then we focus only on Sunday reflections; please comment below…)
