The chapter
Simply The longest chapter in the book, and it covers about a day: a woman pours out perfume, one of the twelve goes to the priests, they eat a Passover meal, he prays in a garden and is arrested there, and Peter denies knowing him three times before morning.
Context Mark tells it as a series of people leaving. Judas goes to the chief priests, the three closest cannot stay awake, everyone runs at the arrest, a young man runs so hard he leaves his clothes behind, and Peter follows as far as a courtyard fire and no further. The only person in the chapter who does something for him without being asked is the woman at the start, whose name the text does not give.
Verses 1-11
Simply A woman breaks a jar of pure nard over his head, and some of those present are angry at the waste, since it was worth more than three hundred denarii. He tells them to leave her alone: she has done what she could, and has anointed his body in advance for burial.
Context He says her act will be told wherever the good news is, as a memorial of her, and Mark then immediately tells the opposite story: Judas, one of the twelve, going to the chief priests, who are glad and promise money. The priests had already decided not to act during the feast in case of a riot, and the offer changes their timing.
Verses 12-26
Simply Two disciples are sent to follow a man carrying a jar of water to a house with an upper room ready. At the table he says that one of the twelve, eating with him, will hand him over, and they ask him one by one whether it is them.
Context The words over the bread and the cup are four short lines in Mark, with no explanation attached: take, this is my body; this is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many. The last thing he says at the table is about a meal he will not finish, that he will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until he drinks it new in the kingdom of God. Then they sing and walk out to the Mount of Olives.
Tradition This is the passage the Western churches divided over, and each of the four documents in this app states its position on it. Westminster confesses that the Lord instituted the sacrament in the night wherein he was betrayed, and holds that the elements, though they are called by the name of the things they represent, remain in substance and nature truly and only bread and wine, while worthy receivers really and indeed feed upon Christ crucified, not carnally or corporally but spiritually. The Thirty-Nine Articles say the same in fewer words, adding that the body of Christ is given, taken and eaten only after a heavenly and spiritual manner, and that transubstantiation cannot be proved by holy writ. The Council of Trent, in the thirteenth session, teaches that after the consecration Christ is truly, really and substantially contained under the species of the bread and wine, and that the whole substance of the bread is converted into the substance of his body, a conversion the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation. Philaret's catechism uses that same word and then limits it: the Eastern Patriarchs, it says, do not take transubstantiation to define the MANNER of the change, which none can understand but God, but only that the bread truly, really and substantially becomes the very Body of the Lord. The Orthodox witness is therefore neither a fifth position nor simply the Catholic one; it affirms the same reality and declines the same explanation. ONE THING SHOULD BE SAID PLAINLY: these four documents were written against each other, and they use language about each other that this app does not adopt and does not repeat. Every paragraph named here can be opened in full, in its own words, including the condemnations. Reading them is the point.
Verses 27-31
Simply On the way he tells them they will all fall away, and Peter says that even if everyone else does, he will not. He is told that before the rooster crows twice tonight, he will deny him three times, and he insists harder, and so do all the others.
Context The line he quotes about striking the shepherd and scattering the sheep is from Zechariah. He puts something else beside it in the same breath, which nobody in the scene picks up: after I am raised, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.
Verses 32-42
Simply In Gethsemane he asks the three to stay awake, goes a little further on, falls to the ground and prays that the hour might pass from him. He asks for the cup to be taken away, and then asks for what his Father wants instead of what he wants.
Context Mark keeps the word he prayed in, Abba, and translates it, as he does with Talitha cumi and Ephphatha. He also keeps what is least flattering to everyone: that Jesus was greatly troubled and distressed, that his soul was sorrowful to death, and that the three fell asleep three times and had nothing to say for themselves.
Verses 43-52
Simply Judas arrives with a crowd carrying swords and clubs, and the sign he has arranged is a kiss. Someone draws a sword and cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant, and Jesus asks why they came out armed for a robber when he taught in the temple daily and they did not take him.
Context Then everyone runs. Mark adds two verses that appear in no other gospel and lead nowhere: a young man following in nothing but a linen cloth, grabbed by the crowd, who leaves the cloth behind and gets away naked.
Verses 53-65
Simply Before the high priest and the council, the case does not hold: many testify falsely and their statements do not agree, including the ones about destroying the temple. He says nothing at all until he is asked directly whether he is the Christ.
Context His answer is two words and a quotation: I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds. The right hand belongs to a psalm he had quoted himself in the temple two chapters earlier, and the clouds to what he had said on the Mount of Olives. Through the gospel he has been telling people to say nothing about him, Peter included; asked directly here, he says I am, and that is what the high priest treats as blasphemy.
Verses 66-72
Simply Downstairs, a servant girl recognises Peter by the fire and says he was with Jesus. He denies it, then denies it again, and the third time he curses and swears he does not know the man, and the rooster crows a second time.
Context The two scenes are told at the same time and one floor apart: upstairs he is asked who he is and says so, downstairs Peter is asked the same kind of question and says the opposite. The chapter ends on one verb, that Peter thought about it and wept, with no further comment from Mark.