What Did Jesus Give Up?

Luke describes Jesus before his death as being in “agony” and describes a man in a state of mental trauma.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke all show Jesus asking to avoid death, “If it be your will…take this cup from me”.  And at the very end, Jesus does not, as the Maccabean martyrs did, confidently call those present to conversion. Rather, he cries out to God that God has forsaken him. Sure, Jesus suffered a three-hour-long death by slow suffocation and blood loss. Yet, as horrible as that was, there have been far more excruciating deaths that martyrs have faced with far greater confidence and serenity.

Why was Jesus so much more overwhelmed by his death than others have been, even more than his own followers?

To understand the full depth of Christ’s suffering we must remember how he is introduced at the beginning. The gospel writer John introduces us to the mystery of God as tri-personal. The Son of God was not created but took part in creation and has lived throughout all eternity “in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18) — that is, in a relationship of absolute intimacy and love beyond our capacity to imagine.

And at the end of his life he was cut off from the Father.

There may be no greater inner agony than the loss of a relationship we desperately want. If a mild acquaintance turns on you, condemns and criticizes you, and says he never wants to see you again, it is painful. If someone you’re dating does the same thing, it is qualitatively more painful. And if your spouse does this to you, the psychological damage is... infinitely worse.

We cannot fathom, however, what it would be like to lose not just spousal love that has lasted several years, but the infinite love of the Father that Jesus had from all eternity. Jesus’s suffering would have been eternally unbearable.