The frequency of Nazarene dustups with the deadly triad should leave no doubt that the barrel was over the “falls”. John was polite about it and called the situation “axe about to chop the tree”: timber time. The Nazarene too kept his evaluation of the powerbrokers of the times until the third year of his ministry. Does a “house desolate” and “chickens rejecting the safety of the hen’s wings” sound like the rubberstamping of the patriarchal tradition or the covenant that underpinned the action at the centre of life in New Testament times in Judea?

We can tell that he became the target of envious elders, paranoid priests, wannabe rulers like the Herods and shallow and corrupt experts in the Law of Moses as predicted in exquisite detail. They saw the end arrive and an empty future beckoning.