NOTES for Mar 14:66-72
Why does Peter go into the courtyard of the high priest’s house? What does he want? Now that it has become clear that there will be no uprising, no messianic war for which the disciples had inwardly been preparing, any attempt to free Jesus has, of course, lost all meaning. How and why could one free someone who voluntarily surrenders Himself? Peter simply wants to see what will happen next, perhaps to see the Teacher once more and, if possible, to understand what everything that has happened actually means. He is no longer thinking of an uprising, and much of what was said at the Last Supper has slipped from his mind as well.
Yes, there, during that meal, he promised the Teacher faithfulness to the end, even unto death if necessary. But everything was quite different then: Peter, like the other apostles, was living in another reality, one they had invented themselves, yet one that was absolutely real to them. Now that reality has collapsed. In this other reality, entirely new to Peter, everything has changed, and all that came before has lost its meaning and significance, vanishing like a mirage. It is at this very moment that the words ‘You too were with Him’ suddenly strike the apostle like a bolt from the blue.
These unexpected words seem to come from the past: from that past in which he was indeed ready to die beside the Teacher, but in which an uprising, a messianic war, great deeds and heroism were expected, and at the end, the Kingdom in which they would all reign together with their future King. Now the past is gone, yet somehow words still reach him from it, words reminding him of promises made to the Teacher so recently… But that is no longer there, it can no longer be; why are words from the past being spoken at all? Whether he was with Him or not, what difference does it make now, when everything is in the past, when everything has ended before it could even begin?
Then the cock crows. That very cry which, according to a belief widespread among various peoples, drives away all the dark powers of the night and heralds the rising sun. At this sound, Peter seems to wake up: the new reality descends upon him in all its clarity, and he remembers the Teacher’s words about the cock, spoken during the supper. Suddenly it becomes clear that betrayal remains betrayal, even if committed involuntarily, as though in a dream. This is not, of course, Judas’s deliberate betrayal, yet it is still disloyalty, unexpected even to Peter himself. He had one, perhaps final, opportunity to remain faithful to the Teacher, and he let it slip away. He had reason to weep.