We are very familiar with the events of Good Friday. We know the people, the details, the horror and the injustice of it all as well as the love and strength of Christ. It is the key to our salvation and redemption. But in the background of the events are several people, minor characters in the unfolding drama. However, when we give them a closer look, we may find they are more familiar, more recognizable than we realized. We’ve seen how Malchus prepared us to engage with those who see Jesus as a threat. Pilate’s wife represented the many who depend on their superstitious ideas about Jesus rather than the truth. Some of us are more like Simon.
They forced a man coming in from the country, who was passing by, to carry Jesus’ cross. He was Simon, a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus.
Mark 15:21
Simon, a Cyrene
We learn quite a bit from this short verse in Mark. Simon was one of the many pilgrims in Jerusalem for the Passover. Because so many people were there, many out-of-towners stayed outside the city traveling in each morning to offer sacrifices or attend worship and prayer services at the Temple. Cyrene was a large city in Libya. Islam doesn’t exist yet, so it makes most sense that Simon is a black African converted to Judaism.
Mark adds that he is the father of Alexander and Rufus. Mark wrote his gospel to Gentile believers and most likely those at Rome received it first. He mentioned Alexander and Rufus to connect his Roman readers to the account. “The Rufus you know, your Rufus … this is has father.” In Romans, Paul adds, “Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother—and mine” (Romans 16:13). Rufus’s mother, that is Simon’s wife, was like a mother to the apostle.
Carrying the Cross
Part of the punishment and humiliation of crucifixion including having to bear the weight of your own cross to the place of execution. Envision something like a railroad tie. After the brutal scourging Jesus endured, he was too weakened to carry His own cross beam to Golgotha.
Roman soldiers were legally allowed to compel any citizen to carry their stuff up to one mile. This rule was the basis for Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. “And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two” (Matthew 5:41). So Simon was pulled from the crowd of onlookers to carry the cross for Jesus.
We are Simon
We don’t know if Simon even knew who Jesus was, or if any words passed between Simon and Jesus. We don’t know if his sons were with him and witnessed this act. It seems incongruous at first that the Christ who was sovereignly in control of all the events surrounding His arrest, His trial, His death and His resurrection, stumbled here. Later, Jesus would have the unnatural, the supernatural strength to cry out “It is finished!” with a loud voice. Why not here?
Jesus bore no guilt. Carrying the cross was a sign of guilt. By impressing Simon into service, the Romans unwittingly drew a beautiful picture of the core Gospel message. Simon represents us all, burdened under the heavy weight of guilt of our sin. Jesus, who had no sin guilt, died under the penalty that sin guilt required. If Jesus had collapsed under the burden, He could not have completed the sacrifice. If we would die for our own sins, justice would be satisfied but redemption could not be accomplished, and we would be forever separated from God. Simon shows us the first step in that divine exchange– our sins for Christ’s righteousness.
We all come to Easter with the heavy load of our sin. Some of us have given that burden to Jesus. Many have yet to. I think Simon was forever changed by his experience. The testimony his family left gives evidence of that. They all understood the profound truth Peter spoke of.
He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness; you have been healed by His wounds.
1 Peter 2:24