Looking toward Jerusalem

"...in order for this life and death to have the sort of saving effects on others that it has, one must be God, and work by the power of God. Thus, Jesus, to all appearances and as far as any metaphysical inquiry can tell, weeps and feels terror before death just as any human would: what is odd is the way Jesus overcomes these anxieties and fears - for example, the way he nevertheless conforms his will to the Father's as the Father's own Son would - and the saving consequences of such acts - Jesus overcomes our weeping and terror by weeping and being terrified...

A locus classicus of this process can be found in the words attributed to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane: 'Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me; yet not my will but your will be done.' A human fear of death, both natural and accentuated by anxiety before death as what brings separation from God through sin to its awful culmination, is here expressed, accompanied by the tears and tribulation that are the human lot under conditions of sin, and then overcome through conformity with the will of the Father, a conformity that is naturally Jesus' own in virtue of being the Son of God, the one whose very will is the will of Father."

Tanner, Kathryn. Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology. Edinburgh: T &T Clark Ltd., 2001. 18 & 30.