Sins in the sand

CEBU, Philippines - It was six o'clock in the morning when a woman in shorts sat along the pavement of Mango Avenue with a bottle of coke in her hand. Here where there are sleazy joints of KTV and comedy bars, here where taxis queue at four o'clock in the morning waiting for couples usually a foreigner and a small puny Cebuana head for a tryst, here where a Catholic school and a Catholic church are in one neighbourhood with not-so-moral establishments, one would tend to ask how did Junquera transfer to Mango Avenue?

As the woman in shorts drank her coke, she looked pained and fallen. How did her night go? Did she end up with a sullen customer?

Two thousand years ago, a woman was taken in for adultery and was made to face Jesus the Christ. The accusers told Jesus, "Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act." John 8:5 says that during that time, adulterous people were stoned to death. Seeing her accusers with stones in their hands, the woman could not make out horror from shame, shame from remorse. But Jesus merely stooped and with his fingers wrote on the ground.

Through the years, Biblical scholars and dedicated Bible readers have been trying to make educated guesses as to what Jesus wrote on the sand. Definitely he was not doodling like you and me when we're bored. To be bored in a moment of condemnation and anger does not seem logical. Some theorists believe Jesus may have written the woman's sins. Whatever it is, all that writing may either have bored the stone throwers or they may have been stoned when Jesus the Christ confronted them with, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." When all her accusers were gone and none of them cast as even a pebble at her, only then did Jesus tell her to, "Go and sin no more" (John 8:11).

How happy that woman must have been when she passed from death to life? How happy that woman must have been that she was saved from being demeaned with a shameful death for the sins she knew she committed. We, meaning including that woman in shorts sitting along the pavement of Mango Avenue, are like that adulterous woman. All humanity is fallen. "For all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God," the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans. These are just not sins of the flesh like walang hanggan adultery, lust, greed, idolatry, killing, falsifying documents, deception, despitefully using people, vindictiveness, addiction, sins committed by man in his animal self. John Ortberg in his book "Everybody's Normal Till You Get To Know Them," said that while people are scandalized with sins of the flesh, we are seldom scandalized with sins of the Spirit. These include walang hanggan pride, arrogance, self-righteousness, judgmentalism -- sins committed of man in his diabolical self.

Erase, Blow and Wash.

Because the wages of sin is death, all of us are worthy of being stoned to death. But Jesus the Christ did a wonderful thing for us, He died on the cross for our sins. He wrote our sins in the sand so He could easily erase it, the wind could easily blow it or the waves could wash these away. Still it comes with willingness to accept being a sinner. Just like the adulterous woman, it comes with willingness to confess of the sins of the flesh and sins of the spirit. It also comes with calling upon the name of the Lord. It comes with accepting Jesus Christ in one's life because it is only by His blood that our sins can be erased just like writing our sins in the sand. Again the apostle writes to the Romans that "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." There is a bit a caution though, Jesus the Christ made it clear that because the woman was saved from death she is to "sin no more." It is just like saying, if you want to be healed from cancer, stop smoking, stop the booze, stop hanging around in bad places, stop sinful lifestyles.

When Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, He gave us a gift we could never have gotten for ourselves. The gift of salvation is a gift of life. It is a gift of truth. But how many of us are willing to confess our sins, accept Jesus Christ in our lives and enter a new life in Christ in a world freed from diabolical and beastly sins? The other caveat is, if Jesus is willing to forgive our sins, we have to be willing to forgive others who trespass against us. To forgive means to relinquish all rights of hitting back to those who hurt and betray us or unjustly accuse us. So when Jesus told the adulterous woman to "sin no more," it meant that she must also forgive her accusers. It took an adulterous woman to make humanity see that to worship our Lord God in spirit, we can only worship in truth if we live a life in Christ.

At four or five o'clock in the morning along Mango Avenue, there are women, men, gays, transgenders in skimpy outfits, lining up the streets as though they just came out from Satan's den. There is no woman in shorts. There are no stone throwers, no accusers, no one to tell them that life lived in sin is a life lived in sand.