Pressed into service

Mark 15:20,21
After they had mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him and put His own garments on Him. And they led Him out to crucify Him. They pressed into service a passer-by coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene (the father of Alexander and Rufus), to bear His cross.

Mark 8:34
If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

The half mile journey between Pilate’s palace and Calvary was too much for Jesus. Beaten, thirsty, stumbling and weak from blood loss, He could not navigate the hilly, narrow Jerusalem streets.

 
All three Synoptic gospels mention Simon of Cyrene, from a Greek colonial city in North Africa. The city was founded ~625 BC and was one of five Greek cities (called Pentapolis) on the coast in eastern Libya, perhaps one hundred miles from the Egyptian border. Simon was likely of mixed heritage, related to the first Greek settlers who traveled there and to the Libyan people with whom they freely married over six centuries.

Luke records that there were Jews from “the districts of Libya around Cyrene” in Jerusalem at the time of the first Pentecost (Acts 2:10). There must have been Cyrenians there at Passover too. One of them named Simon met Jesus on the road to Golgotha.

 
Sometimes we choose the things we must do. Sometimes the choices are made for us.

 
Carrying the cross was not his choice. Simon almost certainly did not volunteer. Matthew and Mark state that he was “pressed into service.” Luke says, “They laid hold of him.” Simon’s burden was not voluntary. He didn’t ask for it.

This cross he carried was not his own. A soldier reached for Simon in the crowd (singled out because he was of darker skin?) and pulled him into the street to carry Jesus’ cross (patibulum). Roman legionaries were permitted to compel the local citizens into service, but the distance was limited to one mile (Matthew 5:41).

 
This cross he carried left him filthy. Simon had traveled a long distance from Cyrene for the festival. He may not have had a lot of extra clothing with him. The blood-stained, grimy cross had probably been used for this purpose more than once. (Wood was a costly resource.) His labor left his cloak and tunic soiled.

 
This cross he carried likely left him changed. Here we can be certain of very little because Simon disappears from history after this Good Friday task. But Mark mentions Simon’s sons, Alexander and Rufus in his gospel. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, as he concludes Paul extends greetings to a list of those whom he knew in the city. “Greet Rufus, a choice man in the Lord, also his mother and mine” (16:13). Perhaps Mark mentioned these two sons in his Good Friday narrative because they were well known to the Christian church in Rome for whom he was writing his gospel. Perhaps the man Mark mentions is the same Rufus mentioned by Paul, whose mother had become a second mother to the apostle. Perhaps this woman was Simon’s wife or widow.

While it is impossible to know, we do know this.

The crosses Christ calls us to carry leave us changed. When we encounter Jesus, when we think about who He is and what He has done, when we follow where He leads, we cannot stay the same. Like Simon, we have crosses we will bear that are unasked for and unwanted. In obedience to Jesus, we hope that we can take up those crosses in denial of self.

 
Perhaps the legacy of Simon – of whom we know nothing beyond this brief encounter with Jesus – is that his life was so changed by Jesus that his family decided to follow Jesus too. The stains on his tunic changed his life.

Simon’s faith, sparked by a chance meeting with Jesus, became the most important legacy he passed on to his family. who in turn became a blessing to the church, to their community and the church throughout the centuries.

All because he carried a cross he didn’t ask for.