“Jesus felt as vulnerable as my little girl…”

“One summer my family spent a week in Clear Lake, Iowa. Half of our time we spent in the water—whether in the lake or the pool. One morning I swam with the kids while Emily took a break. In the afternoon Emily swam with the kids while I took a break. So that afternoon I was poolside, but in regular clothes, reading a book in the shade. Charlotte, then four years old, was swimming in the shallow end. She was throwing one of those floating noodles in front of her and then swimming toward it. Suddenly I noticed that she stopped swimming. She somehow couldn’t reach the noodle and now was nearly motionless in the pool. She was in an upright position, simply moving her hands slowly, and she had this look in her eyes of utter despair. She was about to give up and go under the water. She felt helpless. Well, I jumped in, scooped her up, and brought her to safety.

“Here in Gethsemane, while it is perhaps difficult for us to imagine, Jesus felt as vulnerable as my little girl, so he cried out to his Father to rescue him. That is difficult for us to imagine because this is the same man who stood up against the religious rulers, made bold claims about himself, miraculously healed and fed multitudes, cast out demons, raised the dead, and taught with such great authority. But here Jesus seems like Superman with kryptonite tied around his neck. The mighty man is so weak. Ah, but that’s just it. Jesus is not a superman. He is a man. And the moment we forget the full humanity of Jesus is the moment we Christians embrace the spirit of antichrist. In 1 John 4:2, 3 John says bluntly, ‘By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh [a real human] is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.’

“It is difficult for us to imagine Jesus depressed and weak because we have seen his power and authority. But I fear it is also difficult for us because we undervalue his true and full humanity, to accept that ‘Jesus’ divinity chose to share humanity completely’ (Bruner, The Churchbook, p. 648). In Gethsemane there is no diluting his humanness. And thank God for that because Jesus’ humanness is essential to our salvation. ‘What was not assumed was not redeemed’ is how the Cappadocian father Gregory of Nazianzum worded it. The argument is: if Jesus was not truly and fully human—in body, mind, emotions, etc.—then he could not stand in our place as our substitute for sin and as our representative before the Father. How true. Jesus’ true humanity is something for us to truly ponder and appreciate.”

– Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth, 797–798.