Jesus extends forgiveness, parts 1 and 2

Lynne Baab • Tuesday February 24 2026

Overall theme for the next few months: God’s law is love

Lesson 4: Jesus extends forgiveness (John 8:1-11)

Key verse: Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” John 8:11b

1. Stepping into the Word

Molly is leading the children’s time during the worship service at her church, and she invites the children forward. She sits on a low stool, and the children cluster around her. Molly asks them to imagine that they are in a crowd gathered around Jesus, and a man in the crowd asks Jesus a question.

“Instead of answering right away,” Molly tells the children, “Jesus bends down and writes in the dirt. What do you think he might be writing?”

“God is love,” one child chimes in. Another says, “God loves you.” Molly affirms those two children and waits for more suggestions. Another child proposes, “Maybe he writes one of the names for God, like Good Shepherd, or maybe he writes his own name.” “Maybe he writes the answer to the question,” a child says tentatively. Molly then asks if the children have ideas about why Jesus might have written in the sand. One child suggests, “Maybe he had to think about his answer.”

Molly says to the children, “In the sermon today, your parents are going to hear about a story from the Gospel of John. In that story a man asks Jesus a question, and before Jesus answers, he writes in the dirt. Christians have always wondered what he wrote and why he paused to write something before he answered. You did a great job suggesting options. Isn’t it fun to imagine ourselves there with Jesus?”

Molly is right that Christians throughout the centuries have wondered what Jesus wrote in the dirt. Later in the service, the adults listen to the reading from John 8 about the woman caught in adultery and hear a sermon about the interaction between Jesus, the Jewish leaders, and the woman. They know it takes two people to commit adultery, and some wonder if Jesus wrote, “Where is the man?”

Jesus, healer and forgiver, help us engage deeply with the stories of your conversations with people. Help us imagine ourselves there, listening carefully and learning from you. Fill us with your Spirit so we can interact with others the way you would.

2. Neither do I condemn you

Jesus is still in Jerusalem for the Festival of Booths (or Tabernacles), as recounted in John 7, and he has returned to the temple early in the morning to teach. The Jewish leaders bring a woman to him, saying she has been caught in adultery and asking Jesus how he would respond to this situation in the light of the law of Moses. They are referring to Leviticus 20:10: “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.” Stoning was not mandated by Moses for adultery, but was commanded in Ezekiel 23:46-47.

The absence of the man in this incident could indicate that in a patriarchal society, the men in power are more comfortable charging women with crimes. The neglect of the man’s sin by the Pharisees might also relate to their motive in this incident. They were less interested in justice than in tripping up Jesus in whatever way they can.

Jesus’s pause to write in the dirt, not once but twice, comes only one chapter before his use of mud to heal the blind man (John 9:1-12). We don’t know the significance Jesus places on this moment. For Jesus, the pause, the writing, or the connection to the earth might be the most important aspect. His response after the pause — that those who are without sin should cast the first stone — is extremely clever and also profoundly theological. In another setting Jesus says that “with the judgement you make you will be judged” (Matthew 7:2).

After the accusers depart, Jesus interacts directly with the woman for the first time. His words and their sequence reveal so much about his priorities. Freedom from condemnation precedes a call to obedience. Jesus does not make obedience a condition for forgiveness, but neither does he offer forgiveness without calling the woman to be her best self. The feast of Tabernacles is a time to remember God’s provision to the people of Israel in the wilderness, and Jesus has called himself the bread of life only weeks before this incident (John 6:29-51). Jesus has provided the bread of life for this woman in the wilderness of her life.

Later in John 8, Jesus uses the words “I am” to describe himself, a provocative statement in the light of God’s name to Moses at the burning bush, “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14). The Jewish leaders try to stone him, an ironic parallel with their desire to stone the woman described earlier in the chapter.

Imagine yourself in the woman’s place. What might you have expected to hear from Jesus? How would you respond to his words to you?

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Next week: Jesus extends forgiveness, parts 3 and 4. Illustration by Dave Baab: Kubota Garden, Seattle.

Previous posts about forgiveness:

This lesson appeared in the Fall 2023 edition of The Present Word adult Bible study curriculum published by the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Used with permission.

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Lynne Baab