The Older Ones First - A Holy Week Thought

While listening to our pastor preach he referred to the passage in John 8:3-11 where the woman caught in adultery was brought to Jesus by teachers of the law and the Pharisees.  The point the pastor was making had to do with verse 11 where Jesus tells the woman to “go and sin no more.”  However, another phrase in this passage caught my attention.  It is in verse 9 where John records the phrase, “the older ones first.”  Here is the passage beginning with verse 6:

            They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

            But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.  When

            they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one

            of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Again he

            stooped down and wrote on the ground.  At this, those who heard began to go

            away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left. (NIV)

The phrase that leaped out at me was “the older ones first.”  Why did John bother to record the fact that the older ones left first?  Of what significance is that?  Obviously John felt it was an important fact to be recorded.  The only significance that I can think of is that as people grow older they do tend to become more conscious of people’s foibles.  They themselves have fallen short many times, so older people tend to be less judgmental, I think.  It’s like saying the more a person knows about a subject the more he realizes what he doesn’t know.  Age has a wonderful way of softening a person.

I have seen this in myself.  I am not as sure of things now as I was in my twenties and thirties.  Perhaps this mellowing comes from the hard knocks in life or in the simple realization that people seldom live up to the ideal.  That’s why the marvelous grace of God is so important to people.  The woman caught in adultery was redeemed, not by stones, but by hearing the words of Jesus, “Then neither do I condemn you, go now and leave your life of sin.”  (NIV)

May God help us to be people of grace and not law.