Very disturbing readings today.
In Hebrews Paul says of Christ, "Who in the days of His flesh, with strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications.." In John, Christ says, "Now is my soul troubled."
Christ is upset? Worried? "With strong cries and tears"?
Serious problems with significant implications. Christ is not ignoring His divinity, he is solidifying His human commitment. He is not simply a divine being going through symbolic motions, He is a living being with a real human element that is not overridden by His divinity. He is suffering. This was a terrible philosophical problem for early Christians and a whole branch of Gnosticism emerged with complex explanations of how to explain a suffering God. (Christ was "occulted" during His sufferings and actually the suffering was a substitute, Christ used His powers to fake His passion. People who were present were magically deluded.)
But Christ is saying His suffering is the point. He is not just committed to helping us, He is willing to become part of us to do it. That He is experiencing everything human. And the human element is strong; Christ knows the truth of God and still, in His duality, He suffers. Clearly He sympathizes with those who reach Him only through faith.
He is more than demonstrating His commitment to us, He is demonstrating how difficult it is to be human.
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