Divine Mercy

Date: Sunday, August 23, 2026

A woman is dragged before Jesus, caught in the act, on full display for the crowd’s scorn. It’s an ancient version of the public pile-on our culture still loves, but Jesus refuses to play along. He remains silent at first, stoops down, writes in the dust, and says the line that has disarmed accusers for two thousand years: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” One by one, the crowd drops their rocks and walks away. Jesus doesn’t excuse her sin, but He also refuses to condemn her: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more.” Judgment and mercy meet, and mercy has the final word.

Corrie ten Boom, who survived a Nazi concentration camp after her family hid Jewish refugees in Holland, later told of speaking at a church in Germany after the war and finding herself face to face with a former guard from that very camp. It was a man responsible for real cruelty toward her and her dying sister. He approached her afterward, hand extended, saying he’d become a Christian and asked for her forgiveness. She described a long, cold moment where forgiveness felt physically impossible to produce on her own. And then a strength from outside herself took her hand and moved it into his. She later said she’d never known God’s love so intensely as in that handshake. That’s the same movement happening in the dust of John 8: mercy that doesn’t ignore what was done, but insists on giving grace the last word.

Devotional Prompts:

Where do you need to hear Jesus say “neither do I condemn you” over something in your life?
How does it inform your view of Jesus to see divine majesty (Psalm 45) and stooping mercy (John 8) in the same person?

Prayer: Great I AM, You are both the eternal King and the One who stoops to lift the condemned. Silence our accusers, and send us out to sin no more in the freedom of Your mercy. Amen.