There is, in the Matt/Mark account, no return to the relationship with the Father which was marked, through Jesus’ entire ministry, with the address, “Abba.” I argued, in considering that tradition, that it marked the complete absence of that sense of God’s presence in Jesus. Jesus does not lose that sense in Luke’s account. Mark and Matthew draw Jesus’ last quotation from Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?” Luke draws on Psalm 31: “Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.”
There is no real way to account for this difference. The difference itself is stark; the reasons for the difference obscure. I have been so impressed, however, by the effects of “the strengthening angel” in Gethsemane, that I am inclined to speculate that Jesus’ continuing sense of attachment to his Father was one of the effects. Jesus prayed to be spared the brutal testing. Then, after the angel strengthened him, he prayed to withstand the brutal testing. I argue here that he “withstood it” so successfully that in his last moments, he retained the notion of God as his Father and himself as the agent of the Father’s will.
A second difference that may be related has to do with the “bandits” who were crucified with Jesus. They don’t appear in Mark’s account; they are mentioned as reviling the dying Jesus in Matthew. It makes me wonder what the Jesus who was so brutalized in the Mark/Matthew narrative would have said to the penitent bandit had there been one. What Jesus had left in that account was, “My God, for what cause have you abandoned me?” What would he have had for the penitent bandit?
In Luke, Jesus has been strengthened by a direct divine intervention. He still has access to that understanding of himself that makes “Abba” the true way for him to address God. And to the penitent bandit, he says, in my paraphrase, “I will be in paradise today (after my death) and you will be with me.” In Luke, those are his last words to humans.
Addendum
I have followed Brown’s account of Jesus in Gethsemane and on Golgotha, in Luke this year, to complement my consideration of Mark/Matthew last year. I don’t really have any more to say about Brown’s account, although I have benefitted from it immensely. I have been brought to think much more deeply this year about receiving the strength to endure the test.
I have thought, often, of Paul’s account of “testing” or of “being tempted” (same verb) in 1 Corinthians 10:13. In my account, the New Jerusalem Bible, it reads, “You can trust that God will not let you be put to the test beyond your strength, but with any trial will also provide a way out by enabling you to put up with it.” I have always thought of this in terms of “temptation,” a plausible translation, and in terms of “escaping from” the temptation.
But although the word is the same, it doesn’t make the same sense to me to think of Jesus being “tempted” rather than “tested.” And as I read it, it seemed to me that Jesus could either “escape from” the test or “endure” the test. In the one phrasing, it seems that the test (temptation) goes away; in the other phrasing, it seems that you continue to endure the test, that you do not break under it.
Now, quite against my inclination, I see that Paul says that God will provide me “a way out” by “enabling me to put up with it.” In this phrasing, “putting up with it” is the means and “escaping it” is the end. I find that jarring. Attractive, too. If it makes sense to you, you might note it as a comment because at least 19 other people are likely to need an answer as much as I do.
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