Why do Christians relish in the pain of the accused?

"In a way Im glad all this is happening, Lord bless her. She'll finally realize how wrong she was to walk away from God." 

 "Sometimes God lets you hit rock bottom because he knows that's the only thing that will get you to change." 

"I hope it gets bad enough that he finally realizes he needs Jesus." 

Do any of these statements feel familiar? 

It's what I grew up believing about God. 

I grew up thinking that punishment was God's way of bringing us back to him. I thought he would do anything—no matter how cruel, to bring me back. 

And because of this, I'd see a disaster or a calamity happen in the life of someone who had "slighted" God, and I'd feel happy. "Finally, they'll see how WRONG they were! Finally they'll be broken enough to come back into the church."

The problem was that a lot of times, the people wouldn't change. "Too rebellious I guess. I hope their bad decisions lead to even more ruin. Then they'll know the GOD who's really in charge." 

This created the ironic cycle of desiring to see worse and worse things happen to "sinful" people, in hopes that they would come back to the church, that they would finally really repent of their sins and subjugate themself to God's righteous principles, like I had. 

At some point though, I started to feel convicted when I realized that there were "sinners" I actually loved. There were "sinners" who had actually been wronged and didn't know who to turn to or how to escape. "Sinners" who actually felt trapped by the lack of agency they felt in their own lives. "Sinners" who, unlike me, actually felt the enslavement of the accusations over their life playing out. 

I didn't realize that my sin was enslaving me to a heart that pleasures in cruelty and accusation. A heart that looked frightfully similar to Satan's. 

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I was reflecting on John 8, the woman caught in adultery. This story was hitting different than before. Here's a summary (thank you ChatGPT): 

In this passage, Jesus is teaching at the temple when a group of scribes and Pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery before Him. They remind Jesus that according to the Law of Moses, such a woman should be stoned to death and ask for His opinion, hoping to trap Him into either contradicting the law or showing a lack of mercy.

Instead of responding immediately, Jesus bends down and writes in the dirt with His finger. When they continue to press Him for an answer, He stands up and says, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." One by one, the accusers leave, starting with the oldest.

Left alone with the woman, Jesus asks her if anyone has condemned her. When she replies that no one has, Jesus says, "Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin."

What really hit me this time was just how sinister the motives of the Pharisees really were. They weren't trying to debate a trickly law—they were in a very calculated way offering this woman as a sacrifice in exchange for God's righteous judgment to be satisfied—and they were asking for Jesus' approval. 

The "sin" they chose to test Jesus with was incredibly compelling. It wasn't a sin that Jesus could deny (they caught her in the act!!!!) and it wasn't a sin that Jesus could overlook—in a communal and interdependent society such as theirs at the time, her adultery most likely had destroyed her family and community (although ironically, the Pharisees were perfectly fine overlooking the other party involved.) Jesus actually HAD to respond. 

Many people wonder why Jesus was writing on the ground, maybe writing out the Pharisees' sins? I think it was a lot more straightforward than that. I think he was devastated. I think he was deeply reflecting. I think he was wondering how these people had gotten themselves into such a prison that they were using God's law to justify killing rather than to justify loving your neighbor as yourself. I think he was trying to figure out what to say (I might be wrong, my husband thinks he was just taking a moment to be incredibly grieved.) 

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As I was musing on all this, my daughter was being rowdy. She was putting clothes on her baby brother's head and he didn't like it. I'd been trying to correct her and she kept doing it. Deep breaths I thought, Im not going to let her strangle my son, but she's a little gal and she needs time.  

As I tried separating them so they could better play, Marina went into the kitchen to get one of her toy cups. Crash! I walk in and my coffee pot that I had just put on for the morning, was shattered. This is getting out of hand I thought to myself. 

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Jesus suddenly stands straight up saying "whoever who is without sin be the first to throw a stone." Because these wicked people, if they couldn't comprehend love, could at least identify sin. This is almost a reverse of "love your neighbor as yourself" because if you realize you have sin, and you haven't offered yourself up to being stoned, yet you're willing to stone someone else for their sin, you're loving yourself more than your neighbor. 

The Pharisees understood this, and while Im sure it killed them to let a dirty vile sinner go, they left. 

Maybe they left hoping Jesus would kill her himself. 

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"Out of the kitchen. I need to clean this up." I was frustrated that my pot was shattered. I was frustrated that I wouldn't be able to have coffee in the morning today, or for a long time. I was frustrated that my ADHD made purchasing another coffee pot a much bigger deal than it needs to be. I was frustrated because there wasn't a good reason for this to have happened in the first place. I should probably make my daughter aware of this.

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Now, the gentle parents here will say "slow down. Its just coffee, its just things. There's no reason to hurt your relationship with your daughter over a $20 cup of coffee. Go to Starbucks today, use a French press, there are a million ways to solve this problem that doesn't involve damaging the relationship." 

I 100% agree. But the reason this doesn't satisfy me is because I tend to abstract everything and take it to its most extreme conclusion, in order to find the principle I am operating by. For instance, am I only behaving leniently because the damage wasnt "that bad"? Well, what if unlike my daughter breaking my coffee pot, the wrongdoing had actually been egregious? What if it had been something I really could not overlook? What if it had been a woman committing adultery? What if it were actually the worst thing imaginable? What if the child had grown up and was completely culpable, no trauma, no misunderstanding, no abuse, no excuses—what if that person ended up taking a life? Killing their own brother? What about Cain? 

God still showed mercy to Cain. It wasn't restorative, but it was mercy nonetheless. 

Here's Cain, after hating his brother, being warned by God that his hatred could overpower him, blatantly ignoring God's warning, murdering his brother, lying about it, and being cursed by God for his evildoing: "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden...and whoever finds me will kill me." 

God: "'Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.' And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest anyone who found him should attack him." 

God protected a murderer for being murdered as punishment. There was no form of reconciliation at that point, but God still protected him. Because he is a God of mercy. 

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But what is Jesus going to do? He is the only one who has the right to condemn. He is in fact the one with the responsibility to condemn. Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him." What is he going to do? It's his right to condemn. Is he going to demonstrate the mercy of the God of Cain? Or now that the law of Moses has been enacted (the Pharisees referenced this) is Jesus bound to uphold the righteous killing of the rightfully condemned? 

"Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him." 

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I need my daughter to know that she can't just be pulling down random things from the kitchen counters. She could have gotten hurt! My frustration is justified. Im going to let her know that she can't be doing this. I have to get across that this isn't ok.

"Come here please." I said. My daughter turned to me, and approached me, with a curious posture. She approached me with her arms wide open. She approached me expecting a hug. She approached me expecting comfort. She approached me believing that she didn't have to earn affection with the promise of better behavior. She approached me expecting that the mercy comes first. 

Her expectation surprised me. I gave her a big hug. 

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"Jesus stood up and said to her, "woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? " She said, "No one Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go and from now on sin no more." 

The mercy always comes first. 

The woman didnt have to promise to do better before she got a hug. Jesus didn't even ask her if she was going to do better. Jesus knew that receiving such a transformative mercy IS THE THING THAT GETS YOU TO CHANGE! It changes you fundamentally, from the inside. 

When I gave my daughter a big hug for the coffee pot accident, I did talk to her, I told her to be careful, but I didn't have to question her motives or intentions. I didn't have to question whether or not she would "try" harder next time, and I especially didn't have to wait for her to say "yes I will try harder" before getting affection from her mother. As if I would only offer love in exchange for a better attempt at obedience. 

God's mercy always comes first. And that's why it's at a cost. 

What if the Cains actually don't change? What if some of that free mercy truly is at the expense of power, or control, or emotional fulfillment? 

And here's another thought: What if the community doesn't accept Jesus's mercy towards the woman as valid? 

What if, like Cain, even if Jesus decides to show mercy, the community won't, and the best she'll ever be is an outcast? 

This is why Jesus offered himself as an outcast instead. He offered himself as a last ditch attempt to reconcile the world to himself, and the sinners to the community. The community accepts this offer, because they want the law to survive, and they want Jesus dead. 

But God accepts this offer too. He accepts it because it's the only way he can get all his outcasts back. He accepts Jesus's death on the cross as a sacrifice because He's not actually willing for one of the sinners to perish. He wants his mercy to be accepted by the community. 

"All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation." 

This is so incredibly contrary to everything we as an evangelical Christian community have been taught and continue to teach. We delight in righteous punishment, imagining that God's going to hit harder and harder until we finally come crawling back ie repentance. Only then do we get the acceptance and love he promised. And only then can the community welcome them with open arms. We exchange love for subjugation. 

God never does this. Jesus never did this. In fact he died to prove the opposite. He was willing to be subjugated so we would never have to. So that his mercy could actually be enough to reconcile us. So that everyone who accepted Christ's death as their own would never have to die, or kill, each other again. And death doesn't mean physical killing. Its any witholding of love.

“For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.” 1 John‬ ‭3:11-14‬ ‭ESV‬‬

"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." John 3:15

Let me say this again: any witholding of love is participation in death. 

No matter how small. No matter if it's in secret. No matter if it's against someone who WONT ACCEPT YOUR LOVE ANYWAYS. 

We Christians have NO EXCUSE to be Cain. 

"By this we know love, that he laid down his life, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love the world or talk but in deed and in truth." 

Christians, when we withold love thinking that we are helping God carry out his righteous judgment, we are witholding the love that Jesus died for so that we could freely give it away to sinners. Because even we don't belong to ourselves anymore. We belong to him who died "that [we] might no longer live for [ourselves] but for him for [our] sake died and was raised." 

Christians, let's stop relishing the pain of sinners—let's stop withholding love and spreading the message that God does the same.