John 18:1-40

From the sacred hours of teaching and prayer our Lord passed to the final acts in His mighty work. This brought Him to Gethsemane, where we have a revelation of His majesty and His meekness. He suffered Himself to be seized and bound, and led away, and so He passed to the court of the high priests.

In all the annals of human crime there is nothing more utterly degraded and despicable than the procedure of what is spoken of as His trial before them. Unable to deal with the situation, they sent Him to Pilate, and once again we have the amazing story of the majesty and dignity of His dealing with this' representative of the Roman power. It is quite evident that Pilate would have preferred to release Jesus.

It was during this period that Peter came to the full realization of his appalling weakness as it had been declared to him by his Master. Under the pressure of the hour he uttered the threefold denial. Carefully observe how at this moment of finality and his failure he was not abandoned.