“..BUT JESUS STOOPED DOWN, AND WROTE ON THE GROUND, AS THOUGH HE HEARD THEM NOT.” – John 8:6
This story is about two ‘True friends’ who once went hiking through the woods on a warm summer day. At some point of their hike they had an argument, and one friend turned and slapped the other in the face.
The one who got slapped was hurt, but without showing much emotion or saying anything, sat on a rock, stooped down, and wrote in the sand “Today my best friend slapped me in the face”.
They kept on walking until they came to a clearing in the woods with a beautiful stream flowing by, where they decided to take a dip. And before long the one who had been slapped got drawn by the current and was getting swept away downstream and his friend without a moment’s hesitation swam after him, fought with the rapids, and saved him. After he recovered from his near drowning experience, he walked over to a nearby shade, sat on the ground, and wrote on a stone “Today my best friend saved my life”.
The friend who had slapped him in the face, and later saved his life asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now you write on a stone, why?” The other friend replied “When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand, where over time, the winds of forgiveness can erase those hurts away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone, where no wind can ever erase it.”
The accusers of the woman caught in the act of adultery wanted her stoned to death, for that’s what the law decreed! But Jesus unmoved stooped down and wrote in the sand, as if he did not hear them. Because Jesus was operating under a different law; the law of love and of grace, where mercy and forgiveness ruled his heart, and his every action.
Jesus wrote our sins and our failures not on stone but on sand, so that God’s winds of forgiveness could erase them out of sight! King David cried out “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord who could stand before you? But with you there is forgiveness; that we may fear you.”
We all keep a record of what others do and don’t do to us. The good that people do for us, we often write on sand and the evil they do to us, we engrave on stone! The good that people do for us are so quickly forgotten, and their offences stay deeply etched in our memories. William Shakespear the Bard of Avon, said it all so well, “THE EVIL THAT MEN DO LIVES AFTER THEM; THE GOOD IS OFT INTERRED WITH THEIR BONES.”
Today let us solemnly resolve, to follow the example set for us by our Lord, and write the good of others on stone, so that they are never forgotten; and their failings let us write on sand, so that the winds of forgiveness could carry them away to the land of forgetfulness!
God bless you.
Pastor Dayalan Sanders.
