I remember hearing a talk (not a sermon) given by a Lutheran bishop. He was describing the incident in the Bible in which a woman, "take in adultery" was about to be stoned to death.

As Jesus was about to speak up, someone who was hell-bent on trying to catch Him in contradicting Jewish law came to him and asked, "What say you? Should we stone her or not??

It is said that Jesus reached down and wrote something in the dirt with his finger, then said:

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Everybody looked at each other, then one by one and two by two, they dropped the stones they had gathered and wandered off. At which point, Jesus went to the woman who was cowering against the wall and said, "Go. And sin no more."

The bishop said, "I have long wondered what it was that Jesus wrote in the dirt. The Bible doesn't say. But—I have an idea of what it might have been.

"'Where is the man?'"

Don Firth