The Psychosomatic Stress of the God-Man Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane – Theological and Medical Approach

Η Christ’s psychosomatic condition in the Garden of Gethsemane is a representative example of a multifaceted manifestation of acute stress, and testifies not only to His incarnation, but also to the actual cause of His incarnation.

Christ was not only a perfect God, but also a perfect man. His agonizing prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was a prayer to God the Father that He might, as a perfect man, in obedience to His will, patiently drink the bitter cup of the holy Passion and the martyr’s death on the cross, in place of all sinful and corrupt humanity, in order to free it from the power of the devil and the bondage of death. Christ’s temporary cowardice on the Garden of Gethsemane and His commanding sweat were characteristics of His human nature. But by submitting His human will to the will of the Lord. God’s Father removed cowardice and made man courageous against death.

His human nature’s reaction to the acute stress he experienced and the accompanying symptoms he developed, can be medically interpreted in the context of the reaction necessary for survival.”fugitive or struggle“, which appears every time we are confronted with a real danger, or a potentially threatening or dangerous situation. The profuse sweating of His human nature was probably due to the action of the catecholamines (noradrenaline and adrenaline) released by the activation of the sympathetic nervous system, due to the acute stress He was experiencing. It is also possible that the rare phenomenon of haematosis happened to Jesus.

In the garden of Gethsemane, the place of universal anguish, the Jesus Christ sanctified every human suffering and existential anguish.