First, to all the poster here, I want to say I appreciate your comments and I have really been enjoying this thread. I haven’t had much to say in it because I am enjoying everyone else’s points of view so much that I didn’t want to ruin it with my own preconceived notions. After all, preconceived notions can be retained, altered, or deleted.
Alan
As Jim says Jesus did not (He could not) err, however, Jesus taught us mercy and how to ask for it and the perfect way He taught us was firstly in Gethsemane, “Father if it be possible then let this cup pass me by, not my will but Your will be done”, then on the cross, “My god My God why have you forsaken me”?.
Jesus went through EVERYTHING any person could ever go through, to show us what to do and how to get through what ever it might be.
Godbless
littleone
If you are suggesting He was asking “for mercy” in these two situations, and therefore gives Him the “full” human experience, that brings up some other thoughts for me. First, when I was using the term “mercy” before, I was thinking of the experience whereby we wished to be spared what our own deeds had brought us to – e.g. “the wages of sin is death.” In the case where He was asking about the cup being taken from Him, it maybe wasn’t so much what He had done but Who He was.
For example, if my child does something wrong, then I am legally and morally responsible as a parent. And even though I, the father of that child, did not perform the guilty act, the blame still falls on me. Just because I’m the father of the sinner. Could that be a little bit like being the Savior of a sinner?
Either way then, the hardships I ask to be spared from me are themselves punishments for sin. But since we all are parts of the Body of Christ – even more profound than being family members – then Jesus hasn’t sinned but His Body, has.
And on the cross, we are in the process of receiving the punishment, and apparently Jesus doesn’t understand why it had to be that way? I’ve never thought about Jesus not understanding something, but after all He did ask the question – and not rhetorically as He would if He were introducing a parable or something to a man or woman. Maybe Jesus finally “felt” the isolation from the Father, due to all the sin of the world being “channeled through Him,” for lack of a better term. And once He felt this isolation, the isolation that would carry Him to hell with all those sins on His back, He actually felt as a single Human Being, not divinely attached to the rest of us. He bore the pain of all the sins, by Himself without the comfort of the rest of the Body of Christ.
Putting them together, in the garden He was still in Union with His mystical Body, and was asking if He really had to pay for the others’ sins. But is it possible that in so doing, He “officially” set the stage for the scene on the cross? In other words, was it a sign that He was opening Himself up for this feeling of isolation even in the garden, and then found out by experience, that it would mean on the cross He would feel separation from the Father and in turn all of creation as well? These two incidents may have a lot more meaning considered together than one at a time, is all I’m really suggesting here. Anybody can go off that idea and speculate what it must have been like.
So He didn’t experience sinning in the flesh, but He experienced asking for mercy. And if one part of the body is shown mercy, aren’t all parts? So He asked for mercy for others, but never really thought to focus it on Himself until the time it built to that level. And so He felt the punishment in terms of being dismembered from the Body, as well as being disconnected from the Father. Makes me think that maybe He needed to be disconnected from the Father because somebody had to, to overcome the strength of hell – and it was Jesus’s job – and if Jesus had gone to hell without first being severed from the Father (and consequently the rest of His Body) then it could have been a distraction to Him, since He would theoretically still be tied to sinners including those yet unrepentant. Kind of like a kid I knew in high school that fought all the time, but usually lost whenever his girlfiend was watching.
If these ramblings don’t make any sense, please don’t worry; it’s the first time my fingers ever thought to type on this topic.
Alan
