The whole centrality of the Christian message is the cross and the resurrection. Without both we have no good news, no Gospel. Wheresin and death have been dealt with, ‘once and for all’ and no longer defines us. We are post Easter people.

Jesus stated: ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep…no one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down and the authority to take it up again.’ Only through his redeeming life can we know the fullness of life as Jesus intends it.

David expresses the seriousness of sin, because he is dealing with a holy God.

In contemporary society, media, entertainment, and social norms play significant roles in shaping attitudes toward sin. The portrayal of sinful behaviour as glamorous or harmless can lead to adiminished sense of its seriousness. It is viewed as something naughty but nice providing it doesn’t hurt anyone. The real sinners are rapists, murderers and such like.

In 21st century culture, sin is frequently minimized, redefined, or simply ignored. We often hear phrases like “nobody’s perfect” or “we all make mistakes,” which, while true, can dilute the gravity of sin. However, sin is far more than just a mistake or a moral failing. It is a fundamental rebellion against the Creator of the universe.

In our Gospel we find the seriousness of sin being played out with a woman caught in the act of adultery. The law demands her and herlover’s death. However, we may ask where is her lover and has he been an accomplice in her arrest in order to escape Scot free?

To understand the seriousness is to understand that the family unit is the bedrock of Jewish society. It ensures the legitimate continuation of the husband’s family line and it provides the economic and social stability. ‘Adultery,’ writes Chris Wright, ‘was acrime against God as it was a crime against the relationship between God and his people….

In our modern liberal society, we have difficulty conceiving this context, as adultery is confined to private morality and civil proceedings. I have observed over my lifetime a growing tendency within our church to be moulded, shaped and conformed to our society’s standards and values. It greatly concerns me in that increasingly the church has a confused sense of its identity and purpose. It appears to have lost its distinctiveness from our prevailing culture. But if God’s ideals and the church’s life and mission are so intertwined then what should we be aiming at in our own society?

In the book Care in a Confused Climate John Hoffman is quoted as saying ‘without love, acceptance, forgiveness, there is no healing, no regeneration, no restoration of a broken life or of a poisoned relationship. But, equally, without a strong moral witness which is willing to affirm goodness and condemn evil, without the courage to risk oneself and one’s relationship for a principle, a people perish.’ Or put more simply where do we in our personal ethics draw the line in the sand?

Socrates once said: "The unexamined life is not worth living".

Throughout Lent provides the opportunity to come humbly before God, to reflect, to ask for healing on old wounds, where there was a betrayal of trust. To let ourselves be found by God in order to renew our faith. To increase our love for God, and an appetite in us for prayer, often the most neglected and underrated part of our Christian life’s. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart. These God will not despise reject. C S Lewis ‘When God becomes a Man and lives as a creature among His own creatures in Palestine, then indeed His life is one of supreme self-sacrifice and leads to Calvary’. Amen. So be it.