Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Expose (08/22/13)
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TITLE: Revealing Love | Previous Challenge Entry
By Brenda Rice
08/26/13 -
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Nearing her home, the woman called out, “Father, I am clean! The Teacher has set me free!”
“What is this commotion you make? Again, you draw unwanted attention to me, Daughter.”
Throwing herself at her father’s feet, the young woman sobbed, “Oh Father, the most marvelous thing has happened. A man, the one called Teacher, forgave me of my many sins. I am forgiven!”
“A Rabbi from the temple?” Chuckling scornfully, the Father moved away from his sobbing child. “Rabbis do not forgive, Daughter. They reveal your sins and then, you must offer a public sacrifice. What a spectacle that will make for all the wagging tongues. No—you will not go into the synagogue and bring more reproach on this house, and on my good name. I forbid it!”
The woman stood to face her father. “Father, you do not understand. I am clean from my sins. No one can accuse me. The Teacher said, ‘where are your accusers?’ I looked around but there was no one there. All who accused me were gone. Then He said, ‘go and sin no more.’ I do not have to make a sacrifice . . .”
“Stop! I will not listen to your babbling. This Teacher is not from our temple. He is a stranger, and he can not forgive sin. Just another man you have beguiled; a man who will tell you anything for your favors--your favors which you have willingly given to so many men.”
“Oh Father, I have longed for your love my whole life. Now, I see you have no love to give. You had no love for my mother, because she bore you no sons, and no love for me, because I am not a son. I have searched for love in the beds of strangers, because you withheld your love from me.”
“Do not blame me for your sinful ways.” The man bellowed.
“Yes Father, I am a sinner. I see myself clearly for the first time. My cloaks can not hide my soul, they only hide my body. I ask you to forgive me. Can you forgive me?”
“Forgive? Forgive you for disgracing my name throughout the city. For the sneers and jeers, I endure every time I walk in the marketplace. Forgive you for reducing my chances of being a city leader to nil. Daughter, you ask too much.”
“Father, today I met a man who knows all about me, but he loves me without condition. Everything I have done is laid bare before Him; but he is not repulsed by me. I will follow Him to the ends of the earth. The love I have tried to give you, I will pour on Him. My life will I live in His presence.
“I will not ask for your forgiveness again. For I have received forgiveness from the Holy One of God sent here for me and others like me. Your fear of being known for what you are means you can not have what the Teacher offers.
“In Him there is no fear of man and no fear of being revealed, because nothing is hidden from Him.”
“Do not talk to me from a place of equality. You are not my equal. First of all, you are a woman. Second, you are a fallen woman, full of weakness and impurity. No honorable man would call you his. This . . . Teacher, as you say, is just another man.”
“You are wrong, Father, but it is not my place to rebuke you. For that, I am sorry. I desperately want you to understand what has happened to me, but you are a vessel filled with bitter water. I pray that you will be poured out, emptied of yourself; then, there will be room for what the Teacher has to give.”
Based on John 8: 1-11
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I thought this powerful and moving.
God Bless~