Stones left behind: A gift of growing old
In my most recent read through the book of John, I came to the well-known story of Jesus’s interaction with the woman caught in adultery. In an effort to bring a charge against Jesus, the religious leaders brought to him while he was teaching in the synagogue a woman found in the act, saying, “In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” (John 8:5). If you’ve heard this story, I bet you already know his response: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (v. 7).
In v. 9 John says that one by one, the leaders and those in the crowd walked away. But on this particular reading, I noticed something in that verse that I hadn’t before. John notes that “they went away one by one beginning with the older ones.”
While the youngest, in their zeal and convinced of their rightness, white-knuckled the stones in their hands, the oldest had already dropped theirs. Aging is not a magic bullet or guarantee of righteousness or maturity in Christ, but in a culture where youth is desired and aging is dreaded, these gentle reminders of the deep goodness and gifts of aging help me look toward that horizon with anticipation.
When I imagine myself in the story of John 8, the character I identify with has changed over time. For much of my life in Christ, I pictured myself as one of the righteous ones in the crowd, stone in hand, heeding Jesus’s rebuke, knowing I ought to show compassion to those in sin.
I’m not exactly aging—not any more so than any of us are technically aging—but when I look back on my years I can see more clearly God’s grace at work in my own life, and I am certainly much more convinced of my unworthiness to receive it than 15-year-old or even 25-year-old me was. With familiarity with my own sin and the slow growth that time offers, I can now see that I am better cast as the woman left alone at the feet of Jesus, mired in the mess of her misshapen, misdirected desires, in desperate need of God’s unimaginable love and mercy that says, “Neither do I condemn you,” and his surpassing peace and hope for renewal that says, “Now, go and sin no more” (v. 11).
Perhaps their familiarity with their own need for that “seventy-times-seven” forgiveness is why the older ones dropped their stones first, the particular grace of a lifetime of the repetition of dependence on God’s mercy.
As we find ourselves at the feet of the One who alone is without sin, yet whose hands hold scars borne for us rather than stones aimed at us, we can learn to respond to those around us with grace and truth, but never condemnation, just as Jesus did. And if, by God’s grace, aging will provide fertile ground for this kind of tenderness and wisdom to grow, then I will train my heart and mind to call good what God calls good—including the wrinkles and gray hairs and very real losses of independence and ability that aging brings.
I will welcome the passing of the years, even if it pushes me toward irrelevance in the world’s eyes, if it means a tender heart toward those around me, a pile of stones long left behind, and Christ my Righteousness and his kingdom before me.