Mark 14

vs 61

Well, if you can't incriminate him with lies, perhaps just asking him to incriminate himself will work?

vs 62

What was he going to do, lie? It's funny - for a short gospel, Mark really doesn't mind putting in a pretty potent and full answer from Jesus here.

vs 63

So dramatic. Not just the high priest per se, but the culture. It's great, really. But here, his cunning ruse worked. He just asked Jesus to condemn himself, and he did.

vs 64

As I have said many times before, there's only one person who, if they say they are God, isn't lying. So how do you play the odds? This guy wasn't agreeing with the priests, and yet was calling himself God. Surely he can't be the messiah. Would even the messiah claim Godhood anyway?

vs 65

And so, with a mix of righteous anger, and just regular anger (because I am sure they really were offended by what they thought was blasphemy, but no doubt they were also just regular angry at what they saw was an enemy to them and how they thought life should work, especially how life should work for religious leaders - ie, remaining in power.

vs 66

Now, really, the camera is panning away from the awful beating to focus somewhere else a moment. It is really quite incredible that Peter's story gets as much time as it does.

vs 67

Now, assuming the servant girl wasn't there on the hilltop with a pitchfork, we can probably guess that she saw Jesus around Jerusalem, and so saw Peter with him.

vs 68

Yeah, when someone is saying, "Hey, you're a friend of that known felon, who they are charging with falsehoods," you're probably not thinking you're going to get a biscuit. Peter is scared, but what is more important, he has forgotten what he said.

vs 69

This woman is a real pain in the ass to Peter.

vs 70

Just like when you meet someone from Katoomba you know they're a bogan, Peter has a rustic Galilean accent, and it gives him away. It's probably a similar accent to Jesus, and that is pretty much enough to get him tarred with the same brush by all the city slickers.

vs 71

Oh, ouch. Peter, you are going to eat those words.

vs 72

Did he break down and cry in front of them, I wonder? Or did he run off somewhere and do it in the dark? Regardless, what an awful thing for him, to realise that Jesus, the Son of God, had not only been betrayed by his closest friends, but had known it was going to happen beforehand, told them it was going to happen, and Peter had denied it - denied that Jesus was right - only to realise, again, that he was right and Peter was wrong, and now he probably feels it's too late to do anything about it. Does he rush in and say, "I'm Jesus!" or does he say, "Whatever you do to Christ, do to me"? No. He remains a pussy. For now, at least.