Beaten, bruised, bloody, gasping for air, hands and feet nailed to a cross, hearing passersby scoff at the sight of his mangled body – in the midst of all this, Jesus chose to entrust His life to God the Father.
One of my favorite books is Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. There is a chapter entitled The Perfect Penitent, in which the author writes about the mystery of the Lord’s passion. He explains how “God can only share [with us] what He has.” For example “we love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it.”
He applies this to the passion of Christ. Up until the time of Jesus, God had not gone through the suffering, humiliation, and death of the crucifixion. This dying to self, which is what going back to God is like, is what repentance entails.
