Plodding on through the Gospels in the Greek

It's a slow grind, since my Greek has never been anything special, and I'm almost finished with Saint Matthew's. But I know the stories reasonably well and enough vocabulary to know what everything means. I suspect that getting to know the Gospels really well in any language is the work of a life-time. But here's an interesting bit that keeps recurring after the Transfiguration: Christ keeps telling the Apostles that he's going to be viciously tortured and killed in a few days, and they just can't accept this upcoming humiliation. It must have been even harder to accept after the more spectacular miracles, such as the Raising of Lazarus.

'Ἰδοὺ ἀναβαίνομεν εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα, καὶ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παραδοθήσεται τοῖς ἀρχιερεῦσιν καὶ γραμματεῦσιν, καὶ κατακρινοῦσιν αὐτὸν θανάτῳ, καὶ παραδώσουσιν αὐτὸν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν εἰς τὸ ἐμπαῖξαι καὶ μαστιγῶσαι καὶ σταυρῶσαι, καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἐγερθήσεται.'

This is chapter twenty of the Gospel of S. Matthew, verses eighteen and nineteen. Christ and his Apostles are finally approaching Jerusalem for the last stage of His ministry and inevitably into the clutches of his greatest enemies: the Temple priests, whom He sought to replace with His new priesthood, and the scribes, whose authority He had continually challenged in His teaching the people. Let's go quickly through it and pull out useful phrases:

• First, there's the great title of the Messiah used by the prophets Ezechiel and Daniel: the Son of Man (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου). When Christ used that title in His speeches, He was definitely identifying Himself as the Jewish Messiah.
• This Son of Man is to be given over (παραδοθήσεται) to the archpriests (ἀρχιερεῦσιν) and scribes (γραμματεῦσιν), who will condemn Him to death, and then give Him over to the non-Jews (τοῖς ἔθνεσιν), that is, the Greeks or Romans, in this case the Romans. The ultimate insult was the death sentence for blasphemy, because His opponents could not accept His self-identification as the Son of God.
• These non-Jews would now have their way with the Son of Man, mocking Him (ἐμπαῖξαι), scourging Him (μαστιγῶσαι), crucifying Him (σταυρῶσαι). I used to pass over the mockery of the third sorrowful mystery, the Crowning with thorns, until I realised that this was part of the self-humiliation of Christ that, according to Saint Paul, gained Him the Name which is above all names ("...and then He lowered His own dignity, accepted an obedience which brought Him to death, death on a cross. That is why God has raised Him to such a height, given Him that Name which is greater than any other name" - Philippians, 2: 8-9).
• But God, as always, will have the last laugh, for on the third day (τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ), to the consternation of the priests and scribes, who would now have to deal with the Apostles, the deacons and crowds of Christians, the Son of Man would be raised again.