The Tension Where Truth Lives

The Healing We Avoid and the Work We Need

If we are honest, most of us don’t throw stones because we are cruel.

We throw stones because we are uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable with tension.

Uncomfortable with complexity.

Uncomfortable with what a moment might expose about us.

Standing beside Jesus in that courtyard, it becomes clear that stones are rarely about punishment. Stones are about relief. They offer an immediate release from the pressure of unresolved inner conflict. When something unsettles us and we don’t know how to hold it inwardly, we look for something outward to resolve it.

Stones give us that.

They give us clarity when life feels complicated.

They give us certainty when self-examination feels risky.

They give us movement when stillness feels threatening.

This is why Jesus slows the moment.

He understands something about us that we often resist admitting:

people who have not been healed internally will always look for something external to fix, judge, or correct.

The crowd in John 8 did not bring the woman because they loved righteousness. They brought her because the tension of her presence demanded resolution. Someone had to be named. Something had to be decided. Silence felt too heavy to carry.

Jesus does not remove the tension.

He increases it.

He does not distract them from themselves.

He redirects them toward themselves.

“Let the one without sin cast the first stone.”

That sentence does not accuse.

It exposes.

And exposure is painful when healing has not yet begun.

This is where many of us struggle.

Because healing requires us to sit with truths we would rather project. It asks us to acknowledge desires we would rather deny, wounds we would rather spiritualize, and fears we would rather moralize. Healing invites us to admit, I may not do that, but I do something. And that admission feels far more threatening than throwing a stone ever will.

So we reach outward instead of inward.

We talk about clothing instead of desire.

We talk about behavior instead of formation.

We talk about appropriateness instead of accountability to our own inner lives.

Stones allow us to stay busy while remaining unchanged.

Jesus refuses that shortcut.

He knows that without healing, correction becomes cruelty. Without self-awareness, truth becomes a weapon. Without inward work, righteousness becomes performance. So He does not rush to resolve the issue in front of Him. He insists on addressing the condition beneath it.

And slowly, quietly, the stones fall.

Not because people suddenly became holy, but because they became aware.

Awareness is the beginning of healing.

That is why Jesus does not shame the crowd. He lets them leave with their reflection. Healing cannot be forced. It can only be invited. And some invitations are declined because the cost feels too high.

But this is also why Jesus does not condemn the woman.

Because healing does not grow in environments of shame.

He removes the crowd before He speaks to her. He removes the noise before He invites transformation. He creates space where truth can be heard without being weaponized.

That order matters.

It tells us something essential about our own lives:

the work we are avoiding internally will eventually show up externally.

If we do not learn to carry tension, we will seek to discharge it.

If we do not heal our relationship with desire, we will police others’.

If we do not sit with our contradictions, we will condemn someone else’s.

This is not an indictment.

It is an invitation.

Jesus is still standing where He stood that day — patient, grounded, unhurried — still asking us not to be right, but to be honest. Still inviting us to lay down stones we picked up for relief and begin the harder, slower work of healing.

Because the opposite of stone-throwing is not silence.

It is self-awareness.

And self-awareness is where healing finally begins.

If you want, the next movement after this is not another blog — it’s a breath.

This one needs room to work.

And when you’re ready, we can talk about what it looks like when healing actually takes root — not in the crowd, but in the quiet space Jesus creates after everyone else leaves.