Reflecting on the story in John’s gospel of the woman caught in adultery, Pope Francis says: “the Gospel says that everyone went away, one by one, beginning with the elders: it is evident that they had a big debt against them in the bank of heaven.” Then comes “the moment of Jesus, the Confessor”. He was left alone with the woman standing before him. “Jesus was bending down and was writing with his finger on the ground. .. Then “he got up and looked” at the woman, who was “full of shame, and he said to her: Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? We are alone, you and I. You are standing before God, without accusations, without gossip: you and God”.

The woman does not claim to be the victim of “a false accusation”, she does not defend herself, saying: “I didn’t commit adultery”. No, “she acknowledges her sin” and she responds to Jesus, saying: “No one has condemned me, Lord”. Then Jesus says to her: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again, in order not to pass through a time of disgrace, in order not to experience such shame, in order not to offend God, in order not to sully the beautiful relationship between God and his people”.

“Jesus forgives. But there is something more here than forgiveness. For as a confessor Jesus goes beyond the law, for “the law said that she had to be punished”. Indeed, as the Pope noted, Jesus “was pure and could have thrown the first stone”. But he “went beyond this. He doesn’t tell her that adultery is not a sin, but he doesn’t condemn her with the law”. This, the Pope explained, is “the mystery of Jesus’ mercy … in being merciful Jesus” goes beyond “the law which commanded that she be stoned”. “Mercy,” the Pope explained, “is something which is difficult to understand: it doesn’t eliminate sin”, for “it is God’s forgiveness” that does this. “Mercy is the manner in which God forgives”. For “Jesus could have said: ‘I forgive you, go!’ as he had said to the paralytic: your sins are forgiven!”. In this situation, however, “Jesus goes further” and counsels the woman “to sin no more”.

“How many of us would deserve to be condemned! And it would even be just. Yet he forgives!” How?, the Pope asked. “With this mercy”, which “does not eliminate sin: it is God’s forgiveness that eliminates it”, whereas “mercy goes beyond”. Pope Francis then compared God’s mercy to the sun: “we look at the sky, the many stars, but when the morning sun comes, we don’t see the stars. Such is the mercy of God: it is a great light of love, of tenderness”. For “God doesn’t forgive with a decree but with a caress”. He forgives by “caressing the wounds caused by our sins, because he is involved in forgiveness, is involved in our salvation”.

This is Jesus’ style as a confessor, the Pope said. He does not humiliate the adulterous woman. “He does not say to her: what did you do, when did you do it, how did you do it and with whom did you do it!” Instead, he tells her “to go and sin no more: God’s mercy is great, God’s mercy is great: forgiving us by caressing us”. (Reflection on the daily mediation of Pope Francis, April 7, 2014, by L’Osservatore Romano)

Image Credit: Detail of “Christ and the Adulteress” Rembrandt, 1644 | National Gallery London | PD-US