“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” (Matthew 5:44). At best, the group of civic and religious leaders that dragged an adulterous woman from the bed of her lover and through the streets in broad daylight to cast her unceremoniously at the feet of Jesus saw her as an expendable pawn in their ongoing feud with this upstart prophet from Galilee. If they thought of her at all, it must have been with anger, jealousy, and especially contempt. Whatever their motivations, we can say with almost one hundred perfect certainty that they did not do this to her out of love or compassion or a desire for her well-being. And yet, even though they were her enemy, and cursed her, and hated her, and despitefully used her, and persecuted her, nonetheless, they brought her to the one person who could help and bless and lift her up more than anyone else. To be brought before the Savior in such a manner is not something that any of us would wish for, but it is undeniable that the cruel and spiteful act of this mob got this woman to exactly where she most needed to be. Let he who is without sin be the first to cast a stone and condemn this heartless mob that publicly humiliated this woman, but I imagine that this woman, in addition to giving heed to the Savior’s command to go and sin no more, loved those men that brought her to her Savior, and blessed them and gave thanks to God that they inadvertently dragged her onto a path that completely changed her life, and prayed for them that they too might have enemies such as hers who would bless their lives as they had blessed hers. We can't see all ends or predict how our lives might be blessed by those who hate and use and abuse us. Whatever her faults, that woman did not deserve to be treated like that but good still came out of that horrible experience, much, much more good than the evil that precipitated it. So let us love our enemies and bless those that curse us because God has a way of turning those curses into blessings far more wonderful than we or our enemies could have imagined.
