One of the most notable features of the passion narratives in all four Gospels is their restraint, and especially their restraint in describing the physical sufferings of the Lord Jesus.
It may be said that their unwillingness to deal with his pain arises directly from the familiarity of their first readers with the agony of crucifixion. But it is too much part of that delicacy of touch which refrains also from describing his physical features, for this to be the sole reason, or even the chief one.
The truth is more likely to be that the Gospel authors were interested in the meaning of the event, its deep significant for those who were to be saved by its mighty power.
Yet, once again, this is puzzling. Matthew, for one, hardly displays his meaning on the surface. He is not given to pausing in his narrative for a few well chosen Pauline words about propitiation and reconciliation.
Somehow he sees the meaning contained in the bare facts themselves, or rather the facts in the light of the Old Testament scriptures, of which the attentive reader is constantly being reminded.
Think of what he fails to say explicitly - that in these events the love of God shines through; that in his death, "the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me," that at the cross "Christ died for the ungodly." And yet has any writer said these things more powerfully, more clearly?
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