[All-American]

My best answer is this:

The crucifixion embodies the idea of total rejection by mankind. Gethsemene seems to embody the idea of total rejection by God-- that is, it is the moment when the Savior was "made sin," as Paul puts it, thus becoming the guilty party and exposed to all the torments of the damned. The lines aren't exactly drawn-- for example, crucifixion carried with it the connotation that one was rejected of God as well as of man-- but that's the basic idea.

The atonement was to be an infinite and eternal atonement, which means its saving power could not be limited by time or reach. If the atonement involved the crucifixion alone, it would have been insufficient. If the atonement had involved Gethsemane alone, it would have been insufficient. The Savior's suffering, as Alma explained, had to cover the entire human experience, and to leave out anything would have rendered it finite, and thus inutil.

My belief regarding the cloak shielding our understanding of Gethsemene is that the Savior never wants us to understand what happened there. The scriptures are universally vague in speaking of the event, and the most detailed description (the Savior's own), is essentially "you don't know how horrible it was, and if I have my way, you never will":

"How sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.

"Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—

"Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.

"Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I ahumble you with my almighty power; and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit." (D&C 19:15-20)


Good reading found in Isaiah 53:

"WHO hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

"For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

"But he was awounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

"All we like asheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

"He was aoppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the eslaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

"He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the btransgression of my people was he stricken.

"And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities."