I have heard it said that a bird with its wings clipped is still a bird. Jesus, though clipped, remained God. In his case, the clipping continued to his death.
I think of the pre-incarnate Jesus as this magnificent free-flowing glorious blob of divinity, without boundaries, knowing no restraint other than his own self-imposed restraint to be about the will of the Almighty Counsel. Then he comes to earth as a man and submits himself to the first big "clip", if you will: humanity. Suddenly all he is has become fractioned off to a time-sensitive, geographically limited piece of creation which, like a metallic cookie-cutter slicing into an enormous piece of cookie doe - laid out across the counter of eternity - separates him, limits him, and defines as a mere fraction of who he really is.
Through his life the clipping only grows. These walls of limitation seem endless. Not only does he willingly submit to a physical body, but to its emotions as well; it's highs its lows, it's hungers and it's pains. Then there is the submission to Palestinian culture, her foods, her religion, and then to the government of Rome, it's system; then to court trials, agony, and then real death - extinction. Thus God left the boundless majesty-driven environs of heaven and shrunk through his suffering into absolute nothingness.
How did he do it? Why DIDN'T he call upon legions of angels to bail him out of this ever-increasing tightening of the grip of his own creation upon everything he was?
Jesus perceived each corner of the road to the Cross firstly, as designed by God. For him, there was purpose in each "clipping" of his wing. His relationship with the Father was at such a place that he trusted his Father. He understood his Father loved him deeply and was able to be about the business of the Father with this assurance as its backdrop. This became challenging at the end, where Jesus cried to take the cup from him. But even here his Father heard his many cries and sent him divine assistance out of that same love and care. Soon thereafter he came to his senses and embraced the way of Life to be only lived in going to his death.
Second, it was Jesus' Godly fear which kept his heart humble. When a heart is humble it is by default teachable. And "teachable" not in an informational way - knowing formulas, design, facts, or statistics. But in a deeply formative and living way. Humility allows the heart to hear far deeper than the academic. It allows the heart to be formed with the understanding of Purpose. Perfect humility breeds perfect understanding of the ways and presence of God.
And while we will never understand the full disposition of Divinity, there is a place within the humbled heart that is able to willfully and joyfully resign to the sufferings of his design, no matter what they be. For us, the knowledge of his purpose, companionship, and promise to guide us through to the other side is all we need to acquiesce to all things Godly - including suffering.
Jesus became perfected in the things he suffered. He embraced them, bowed down to their senseless extremeness. He lived his whole life that way. He came in crying as a baby and wailing as an adult. His entire life was a never-ending series of submitting to sufferings. He got used to that. It became his lifestyle. It prepared him for the final submission. As submitted, joy was released. Power and grace streamed from his hands and heart in miraculous ways, streaming into others with all the force of a mighty river, damed at it's falls but funneled and transformed into currents of electricity which, if not for the limitations of the dam itself, could never reach the glorious extremes of his ministry.
His lifestyle of suffering took him to into the heart of death - his very own death - where he there became perfected. And through that perfection he became the writer of a New Book, the author of eternal salvation to all who [in turn] obey him.
Praise God for his perfection in suffering.
Pray to God the same for us all.
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