5th Sunday of Lent — Coming Into the Light

SCRIPTURES & ART: Are we doing all we can to “sin no more” and step into the light of Christ?

Rembrandt, “Christ and the Adulteress,” 1644
Rembrandt, “Christ and the Adulteress,” 1644 (photo: Public Domain)

This week, the Gospel of Luke continues its focus on sin and conversion by featuring the account of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery.

As noted for the past two weeks, celebrants have a choice of Readings for the Third, Fourth and Fifth Sundays of Lent. They can always choose the “Scrutiny readings,” connected with preparing catechumens for baptism at the Easter Vigil or, this year, they can select the readings that feature Luke’s Gospel. If your parish is reading today the “Scrutiny reading” of the raising of Lazarus from the grave, see here. If your parish is reading Luke’s account of Jesus’ encounter with the woman taken in adultery, continue below.

As is typical of Luke, Jesus has been at night prayer, this time on the Mount of Olives, when he returns to the Temple in Jerusalem early in the morning to teach. In the middle of his teaching, the Pharisees and scribes arrive with a woman in tow, whom they accuse of having caught in the act of adultery. They accuse her publicly and set her up for public scorn (“made her stand in the middle”). But, intent as they are in making an example of this woman, the Pharisees and scribes have bigger fish to fry. It’s clear from Luke that this is not just about an adulterous woman but also about an unorthodox teacher. The Law was clear: adulteresses were to be stoned. If Jesus does not agree, he is setting himself up against Moses and the entire legal tradition of Judaism. That would be a way of cutting this Galilean down to size.

It would be wrong, therefore, to think the primary interest of the Pharisees was this woman. We see this elsewhere in the Gospels: the Pharisees, Sadduccees and scribes all seek ways to trip Jesus up, to catch him on the first-century equivalent of a bad soundbite. That’s why they want his opinion about paying taxes to Caesar (Luke 20:20-26), about the status of one wife and seven brothers (Luke 20:27-40), and which is the most important of 613 possible Commandments (Matthew 22:34-40). The most direct analogue to today’s Gospel, where the Pharisees try to pit Jesus against rabbinical disputes about grounds for divorce (Mark 10:1-12). Then, as now, taking a stand on questions of sex and marriage can make you enemies.

As is often the case when his interlocutors are insincere, Jesus’s responses are either measured (what is Caesar’s and what is God’s) or blow up the frame into which those interlocutors want to stuff the question (the measure of marriage is not the Mosaic divorce law but the Divine plan of creation in Genesis). Today, Jesus simply writes on the ground. Perhaps some of his audience thought he was crazy. One tradition among spiritual writers claims that Jesus simply starting quietly listing the sins of the woman’s accusers, in contrast to their public acccusations against the woman. The fact that he shifts the question from her adultery to their hypocrisy also shows Jesus will answer, but not on their terms.

In any event, they lost interest. The fact that, absent Jesus’ response, the Pharisees and scribes didn’t just take the woman off on their own but left her there shows that, in ways, she was just a bit player in their bigger drama. But it’s at that moment that a spiritual conversation about conversion, heart to heart, takes place.

Face to face with Jesus, he asks the woman whether anyone has condemned her. “Condemned” her does not refer to being accused but being sentenced, in this case, to die. She admits: no one has.  Jesus does not do so, either. But that doesn’t mean he ignores the moral seriousness of what she has been accused of — pharaisaical hypocrisy does not make marital infidelity any less real. “Do not sin any more” makes clear Jesus recognizes there is a moral issue here, a serious one. The fact that God forgives does not mean grace is cheap or should be presumed.

There is a moment in the 1965 film, Dr. Zhivago, in which Lara is shown confessing having had sex with Komorowsky (although he was far more guilty of forcing the deed). The priest asks Lara whether she knows the story of the woman taken in adultery, which she says she does. “What did Our Lord say?” “Go and sin no more?” “And did she?” “I don’t know.” “No one does. The flesh is not weak. It is strong.”

Do we know what became of the woman caught in adultery? No. One might guess that, having faced public humiliation and possible death, she was not a recidivist. 

But Lara didn’t stop sharing the beds of men to whom she was not married, either.

How often do our “good intentions” of conversion relapse? Our Lord wants us, however, to put in the effort. “Go and sin no more.” 

But don’t fail to come back if you do.

Today’s Gospel was depicted by the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) in a 1644 oil painting now at the National Gallery in London.

Rembrandt is one of those painters who is unique: he doesn’t readily fall into categories, although he was arguably the most important painter of Holland’s 17th-century “Golden Age” in art. One of the distinguishing feature of Rembrandt’s painting is his use of light.

Consider how dark this painting is but for the key participants: Jesus, the adulteress, her immediate accusers. (The fact it is painted in oil on oak doesn’t help with the lightness). One’s eyes need to adjust to the darkness to see the depth of Rembrandt’s detail.

We have, for example, off to the upper right the Temple altar and many people around it. In the dark background behind Jesus, there are many spectators. But the light illumines the core group.

The adulteress kneels before Jesus, her face averted. She is dressed, paradoxically, in white. Her face shows concern, which one would expect from somebody facing being stoned to death. Her accusers, dressed mosly in dark colors, are a blend of traditional Jewish figures and Rembrandt’s contemporary Dutchmen. (Two of the figures, one with a breastplate, the other with a sword, look like they really belong in Rembrandt’s famous Nightwatch). Unlike the adulteress, their eyes are fixed on Jesus, waiting to trap him. Jesus, in colors that associate him with the Temple, looks with compassion towards the adulteress. 

Light is also a key element in John’s Gospel. John reminds us that “the Light came into the world, but man loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil” (3:19). Although the adulteress is guilty, it is she who is in the light before Christ; it is rather her accusers (and their spectators) who dwell in the shadows. 

As we approach Easter, are we doing what we can to step out of the darkness into the light of Christ?