I will say this statement from Christ, "let this cup pass from Me" is a bit perplexing, though we really don't know exactly what He meant by it, we know He always knew He was to suffer and be our sacrifice.
Luke 9:22 saying, "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day."
But I guess knowing about something that is to come and then actually having to go through with it... well He certainly knew what He was about to have to endure. Crucifixion was well established by that time...
The first historical record of Crucifixion was about 519 BC when "Darius I, king of Persia, crucified 3,000 political opponents in Babylon. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, crucifixion)
Jesus most likely had seen people crucified as this was done as a public show, but even if He had not actually witnessed a crucifixion, well He was our God from heaven and would have certainly known everything about this barbaric means of death.
Crucifixion was often performed to terrorize and dissuade its witnesses from perpetrating particularly heinous crimes. Victims were left on display after death as warnings to others who might attempt dissent. Crucifixion was usually intended to provide a death that was particularly slow, painful (hence the term excruciating, literally "out of crucifying"), gruesome, humiliating, and public (Wikipedia, Crucifixion)
When we think of who Jesus was, leading a totally righteous life and certainly taking perfect care of His body as well and there is no account of anybody ever laying hands on Him or abusing Him before His arrest. He just would not have been used to being taken hold of, much less horribly abused.
He was God... though He came as a servant, He was very much above/pure/holy/superior to all these people and yet He was now about to surrender into the hands of some of the most vile and wicked people that He knew were going to torture Him mercilessly.
I really think He was having a kind of panic attack, had become unnerved, which should absolutely show He was a fully physically man (there are some that believe He could not be God and fully man too). But He turned to the only source He could, His Father, who sent Him an angel to give Him the strength needed. He never relented, even when He was struggling in the garden, that He would do the Father's will, as we see in His prayer and most importantly is He DID it!
When you think about it, Jesus is was and always will be God. Before His life in the flesh He had already been living for billions of years, at least, what He willingly volunteered to do is so mindbogglingly incredible...
Heb 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.
v. 10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
mercy, peace and love
Kat