Simon of Cyrene—Inside Christ's Passion
“Christ on the Way to Calvary” / “Christ Carrying the Cross” by Titian, 1560
And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyre′ne, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. — Mark 15:21
The three sections of this article are focused meditations on each participant of this scene: Simon, the soldiers, and Christ. They are perhaps best read as a lens through which one might reflect on a personal struggle or suffering.
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And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyre′ne, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. — Mark 15:21
Most of the soldiers never signed up to hurt people. They probably didn’t see themselves as “the kind of person” who would beat and kill anyone, much less execute the innocent Son of God. And yet, here they are, kicking and whipping a crushed and helpless Christ. Here they are, marching Jesus to His death—and roping in Simon to make sure Our Savior doesn’t expire before they get the satisfaction of crucifying Him. How did they justify this? Did they believe Jesus deserved it? Did they insist they were “just doing their job,” “just following orders”? What did they get out of it—human respect, security, promotion, a violent rush, a twisted pleasure?
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We shudder, we ask ourselves: how could the soldiers do such terrible things? But this was probably not the soldiers’ first (or last) death march and crucifixion.
The soldiers persecuted Jesus the same way we do—one unrighted sin after another. Suffering is too often transmitted human-to-human. Evil grows in the unreviewed heart, and by way of our desensitization, it spreads to others. Each time we willingly condone or commit sin, we reset our mind, erode our conscience, and harden our heart toward it. Like the soldiers, we make excuses. We justify. First the venial, then the mortal. We shatter that precious, built-in moral compass of our conscience which would direct us to heaven. We find ourselves capable of grave sins, and we rope others into it—like Jesus and Simon. Like the soldiers, we become human vehicles of suffering, indifferent to the pain we cause Christ and others.
We may not have crucified anyone—physically. But what about mentally, emotionally, socially, spiritually? We are guilty persecutors of the Christ hidden in the souls of those around us. Perhaps we see certain members of our family as subhuman, as enemies. Perhaps we treat one of God’s other precious children as anything less than a temple of the living Christ. Who do we whip with our words, slash with our silence, wound with our actions and inactions? Do we, like the soldiers, ridicule and blame our victim, as if he deserved the hurt we caused him, as if it was our job to crush him? Do we rope in bystanding Simons to help us perpetuate our evil? Do we ignore the hurt and broken Christ crying out from the soul of another—do we continue our hurt rampage until our opponent is silent and broken, like the crucified Jesus?
But the mystery of mercy is that Christ died for the persecutor, the same way that He died for the persecuted. Most of the soldiers probably continued their warpath of unchecked sin well-past Calgary—straight into hell. But if, at any point, one of those soldiers became honest with himself, admitted to the suffering and death he had caused, repented of his sins, and turned to Christ, was that persecutor not saved like Saul—who became St. Paul, converting his whole heart, mind and life to Christ?
Christ’s unlimited mercy extends to all who repent and amend their life—He is not as far from the soldier as we might think. The persecutor is just as precious to Him as the victim. He died for them both. He waits for us to break our whips, fall to our knees at the foot of the cross, weep in conversion, reach for His bloody foot. He wants to let His precious blood and tears drip over our crumbling clay hearts, returning them to mud—so He can scoop us up, remold us in His very hands. Again and again, He makes Himself available to us in prayer, sacramental confession, His true and living Presence in the Eucharist. In these places, He can work quickly on us: replacing our broken conscience, repairing our faulty heart, resetting our internal compass to point us always back to Him.
Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. — Luke 15:7
...though I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted him; but I received Mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And I am the foremost of sinners; but I received Mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. — 1 Timothy 1:13-16
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And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyre′ne, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. — Mark 15:21
Does Simon want any part in this man’s death march? As the soldiers strap him under the cross, does he glare, resist, curse under his breath? Does his heart cry out, “Why me? How did I get roped into this?” As the crowd pelts them both with rocks, spit, obscenities, can Simon see anything other than pain and death ahead?
If he had been told this was the Savior of the world, this was God’s loving plan to redeem all of mankind—would he have believed it, would he have volunteered to carry this cross?
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The Gospel doesn’t tell us why Simon of Cyrene was the one man forced—and privileged—to carry Jesus’ cross. But we know that the Lord rules the finite and the infinite: He wastes no detail. Surely God assigned Simon to Jesus—and Jesus to Simon—because He knew Simon needed this specific encounter even more than Jesus.
Like us, Simon started as an outsider. He watched Jesus suffer from the safety of the sidelines. He probably had a list of logical excuses why he could not stop to help. Perhaps he thought to himself, "not my march, not my cross." But then, suddenly, it was.
God calls us to be Simons in a similar way. He places us near suffering, and calls us in. He asks us to be His helping hands, to lift a beam or sliver of someone else’s cross. Like Simon, we are often surprised and reluctant participants. We are near-sided: we can’t see past the danger, the pain, the difficulty someone else's cross might bring us. We become discouraged because we are unable to remove the cross—we think our small efforts useless. Like Simon, we are unable to see God's bigger plan for us and the suffering. We overlook the Jesus who is so close to us in this moment.
But the Lord does not overlook us. He wishes to do for us as He did for Simon: to refocus our gaze, convert our hearts, bring us closer. He guides us to the cross of another, that we might help lift it to the glory He has hidden beyond, built from its repurposed slivers. He wishes to take our small sacrifice, and multiply it, as He did Simon's.
We do not know how Simon's life was changed by the encounter with Jesus on the cross. But Bible scholars suggest the way that Simon is referred to as “the father of Alexander and Rufus” indicates his family was well-known to the Gospel authors and first Christians. Ancient Church tradition also documents the existence of two early Christian missionary brothers by the names of Alexander and Rufus. Simon's act of service, which appeared to be of little honor and no impact at the time, influenced the lives of his sons, and countless others—to this day. And surely it meant everything to Jesus.
Imagine the instant Simon’s eyes caught the eyes of Jesus. Did Christ not remain on the ground—knowing He would be beaten, all the more, for the delay—just so He might have the chance to lock eyes with Simon, thank him with a single gaze of soul-wrenching pain, love, gratitude? Was Simon not instantly converted? Did he not lift the cross in quiet surrender, to willingly follow Christ through this world to His final triumph?
And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ — Matthew 25:40
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? — Matthew 16:24-26
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And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyre′ne, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. — Mark 15:21
Our Lord has just been stripped, scourged, mocked and spat on. His flesh hangs in strips. Blood and sweat stream from his thorned forehead, stinging Him, half-blinding Him.
Jesus falls—He is pinned by the cross. But is not the physical pain that topples Him, not, even, the dead weight of the wood. It is something hidden: the shrapnel of human sin which He has plucked from the sorrowful and repentant hearts of men, wedged in His own heart, between the soft layers of mercy. It is this pain, this weight—a heart heavy and tearing with the world’s sin—which makes Him fall.
But He will get up. For the weak and wounded, He will get up. He will march these daggers of sin up the hill to the cross, dissolve them in His blood and eternity.
But just then, the cross is lifted off Him. Jesus forces His head to turn. The thorns rip the thin skin of His temples, but through the blood and dirt, His eyes find Simon. The soldiers are tethering this man to His cross.
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Jesus was divine—He did not actually need human help. He could have chosen to “do it all by Himself,” to suffer and die without Simon’s help. And yet, in perfect humility, Jesus understands it is God’s will that He accept this momentary aid of Simon. He simply, gratefully permits Simon to help carry His cross—He does not turn Simon away.
In our own suffering, we are not always as humble as Jesus. As we stumble and breakdown under the physical or emotional weight of our own cross, the evil one will try to convince us to carry our cross alone. Satan’s ultimate goal is to crush us, that we might do what he does: flee the cross and reject God and all things of God.
The devil wants us to push away the Simons the Lord sends our way. He preys on our thoughts and emotions: he floats us into the errors of superiority, suggesting we are above the aid of Simon—that we don’t need help, shouldn’t need help, that no one is skilled enough to help us. He tramples us into inferiority, insisting we are unworthy of aid—that we don’t deserve help, that no one wants to help us, that no one should have the burden of helping us, that we are beyond help. But Satan lies, he has just one goal: to steal us and others away from God’s unfolding plan of glory.
But Jesus accepted Simon’s help in perfect humility, crushing Satan. To become like Christ is to embrace our cross, and the Simon the Lord sees fit to send with it. We can be confident the Lord wishes to work in all angles of the situation. When we cooperate with His plan, He can work freely in us—and in our Simon.
We might consider the instant Simon of Cyrene’s gaze caught the eyes of Jesus. Was there any apology or shame in Our Lord’s eyes? Did this not mean everything to Him? Could His eyes hold anything other than pain, love, gratitude for Simon? Was Simon not instantly changed by this briefest look, this privileged service? Was Simon not repaid lavishly—if not in this life, surely in the next?
Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation.” Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. — 2 Corinthians 6:1-2
