When I was 15 years old, I camped out with two other guys at "Tin Can Beach" during Easter Week school break. Back in those days that section of beach between Seal Beach and Huntington Beach was open to the public. You just pulled your car off to the side of Pacific Coast Highway and took your supplies (usually beer bottles, beer cans, coke bottles, and hot dogs) down to the beach and made a fire pit to cook your meals. Most people only came down for the day. Broken glass bottles and beer cans littered the beach from the road to the ocean. You had to walk carefully or you would slice your feet. Great place to go if your tetanus shots were up to date. Nowadays the place has a name upgrade and it is called Bolsa Chica State Beach. You get to pay entrance fees so families can go there and not slice up their feet. But, I miss the unsupervised wildness of Tin Can Beach.
During the Easter week break, there weren't very many people camping out for the entire week. We did such things as shooting our BB guns at each other, throwing rocks at each other, and swimming in the ocean from morning until the sun went down and going to the little grocery store where I bought my first can of Heinz Vegetarian Beans for 17 cents. Been eating them ever since.
On a Wednesday of that week, while we (Bob Schlitz, Johnnie Whitmore, and myself) were throwing rocks at the birds and each other. Johnnie, who was 50 yards away, let loose with a goodly sized stone which hit me square in the forehead. I thought I would play a joke on them by falling to the ground and assume the dead position. Well, the joke was on me. They ran up all right, but when I pulled my hands off my face the blood was spurting and I had a big headache. But 15 year olds are tough critters – a dip in the ocean to clean the blood up, a few band aids to pull the skin together, and lay out in the sun for another 2 or 3 days and life was good.
Bob and John both died before they reached 40. That is another story for another time. I just looked in the mirror, some 56 years later after that 1955 event, and son of a gun if that scar is still not planted square between my eyes and one inch above my eyebrows. I have not thrown a rock at anyone since that day.
Let's talk about throwing stones at people.
Do you remember the very first time you read chapters 6 and 7 of the Book of Romans in the New Testament?
Wasn't it a revelation as you saw "yourself" in Paul's struggle against sin? His weakness and his failure mirrors our weakness and failure. We know what is right and what we should do, but we don't do it. We know what is wrong and what we should not do, but we do it anyway. Such is our struggle against sin and mans fallen nature. Paul said it so well.
Our own struggle with sin is why the story of the fallen woman found in the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John resonates so well through the centuries, because the players are dealing with real issues of life. The lady in question was caught in the act of adultery, a capital offense for the male participant as well as the female if one is applying Mosaic Law. Nevertheless, the religious leaders brought only the fallen woman and cast her at Jesus' feet. Jesus was a righteous teacher of the law, speaking with authority. He is confronted with a problem: he claims to be sent from the God who gave Moses the law, would Jesus now enforce capital punishment under the law of Moses. The religious leaders knew that the Mosaic law required "death by stoning" for her act. Jesus is now asked, "What do you say?"
Well, what Jesus did was magnificent, simply magnificent. Jesus did not say she should not be stoned, but he also did not put the lady on trial. Instead, he put all of mankind on trial, and particularly those who accused the lady. It's really a great question, and cuts right to the core of Romans 6 and 7. Jesus said, "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone." Starting with the oldest they filed out. Finally, only the woman was left with Jesus, and he said to her, "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more."
That must have been an interesting scene. Imagine all of the wheels turning in everyone's head as they tried to figure an intellectual way around this problem. Some may have tried to quickly relive their past to see if their slates were clean. Others probably had embarrassing flashes of blinding light illuminating secret corners of their souls. The younger men may have thought of bluffing their way through the mess if the older men had stood firm.
Wasn't it a revelation as you saw "yourself" in Paul's struggle against sin? His weakness and his failure mirrors our weakness and failure. We know what is right and what we should do, but we don't do it. We know what is wrong and what we should not do, but we do it anyway. Such is our struggle against sin and mans fallen nature. Paul said it so well.
Our own struggle with sin is why the story of the fallen woman found in the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John resonates so well through the centuries, because the players are dealing with real issues of life. The lady in question was caught in the act of adultery, a capital offense for the male participant as well as the female if one is applying Mosaic Law. Nevertheless, the religious leaders brought only the fallen woman and cast her at Jesus' feet. Jesus was a righteous teacher of the law, speaking with authority. He is confronted with a problem: he claims to be sent from the God who gave Moses the law, would Jesus now enforce capital punishment under the law of Moses. The religious leaders knew that the Mosaic law required "death by stoning" for her act. Jesus is now asked, "What do you say?"
Well, what Jesus did was magnificent, simply magnificent. Jesus did not say she should not be stoned, but he also did not put the lady on trial. Instead, he put all of mankind on trial, and particularly those who accused the lady. It's really a great question, and cuts right to the core of Romans 6 and 7. Jesus said, "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone." Starting with the oldest they filed out. Finally, only the woman was left with Jesus, and he said to her, "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more."
That must have been an interesting scene. Imagine all of the wheels turning in everyone's head as they tried to figure an intellectual way around this problem. Some may have tried to quickly relive their past to see if their slates were clean. Others probably had embarrassing flashes of blinding light illuminating secret corners of their souls. The younger men may have thought of bluffing their way through the mess if the older men had stood firm.
But, the oldest man wavered. He blinked, and he lost. He knew he had failed in one point of the law and therefore was guilty of failing the entire law. What a revelation, an "epiphany" if you please, as one by one by one, the religious leaders understood that their sins were as great as the lady's before Jesus. She knew what she was; they had forgotten who they were. But, notice who was set free and loosed from the curse of the law. To only the woman Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more." He did not say that to the religious leaders. They each left carrying their individual load of guilt and shame.
Casting stones at other people for their moral failures is a dangerous business. Go slowly and proceed with caution. Love with an open heart and you will be on safer ground.
Casting stones at other people for their moral failures is a dangerous business. Go slowly and proceed with caution. Love with an open heart and you will be on safer ground.
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