I Am

The hearing has been going badly for the men running it. Witness after witness stands up, the accounts keep failing to line up, and Mark reports that failure twice.

So the high priest gets to his feet and tries to get the prisoner to fill the hole himself.

Have You no answer? What are these men testifying against You?

Jesus says nothing at all. Isaiah has an old line about a servant who was oppressed and afflicted and did not open his mouth, led like a lamb to the slaughter. A man who will not speak in his own defense hands a court nothing to work with, and this court has already used up its witnesses.

So the priest asks the one question sitting underneath all the others: are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? The silence ends there.

"I am," said Jesus, "and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven."

Set that against how carefully he has handled the question all through this book. He would not let demons say who he was. He told a healed man to keep it to himself. He told three friends coming down the mountain to say nothing. Now, under guard, with a death sentence waiting on the far side of the answer, he says it plainly to the men who will use it.

The second half of what he says is built out of two much older sentences. Sitting at the right hand comes from a psalm of David, where the LORD tells David's Lord to sit there until his enemies are a footstool for his feet. Coming with the clouds comes from Daniel, where one like a son of man arrives before the Ancient of Days and is handed a kingdom that does not end. He is under guard, telling the court they will see him seated.

The high priest tears his clothes. The law given for Aaron's line said the high priest must not tear his garments, though whether that covers a gesture made in a courtroom rather than in mourning is argued about. Mark sets the two things side by side and adds nothing.

Then the verdict, and then the part nobody enjoys reading. They spit at him. They cover his eyes, hit him with their fists and tell him to prophesy, and the officers receive him with slaps to the face. Isaiah again, centuries before: a back offered to those who strike, a face not hidden from scorn and spitting.

His eyes are covered and they are demanding a prophecy from him. Down in the courtyard, while they are demanding it, a prophecy he made earlier that night is coming true.