Simon of Cyrene
Simon of Cyrene
by Danny C. Wash
“And He [Jesus] was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, this is the one who will save it.”Luke 9:23-24
“And as they led Him [Jesus] away, they [the Roman soldiers] seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus.” (Luke 23:26; Also, this event with Simon is mentioned in Mark 15:21 and Matthew 27:32)
Simon of Cyrene was coming in from the country minding his own business, probably heading for the Jerusalem temple to participate in the Passover, which was occurring at this time. Simon had an unintentional appointment with the most important moment in his otherwise ordinary and unremarkable life. An appointment that caused him to be included in the Bible record of the central point of human history.
Jesus was experiencing the final day of His life having been sentenced to death by Pilate, after having been put on trial by the Jewish authorities. Jesus had been flogged by the Roman soldiers with a flaying whip resulting in many open cuts on his back with blood loss and had been up all night without sleep. Therefore, His physical condition would have been very weak and was preventing Him from making progress carrying the heavy cross up the hill. As the above scripture from Luke tells us, Simon was “seized” by the Roman soldiers and made to carry the cross of Jesus up the hill to Golgotha, the place of death. Other than this one sentence, we know almost nothing about Simon. But, what we do know is that Simon’s service to Jesus was included in the Bible record for a reason, since nothing is in the Scripture by chance.
It appears that the reason Simon’s participation was placed in the record may have been because of its connection with Jesus’ words in the other verse above from Luke chapter 9. Luke 23:26 is careful to record that the soldiers “laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus.” Chapter 9 verse 23 tells us that we must take up our cross daily and follow Jesus. In a sense this is what Simon did was to take up the cross and followed Jesus up the hill as a kind of real world picture of the verse of scripture.
Although we are not “seized” by soldiers to carry the cross, we are seized by God through the Gospel message as a believer to carry our cross, following after Jesus as did Simon. The cross we are to carry referred to in Luke 9:23-24 is referenced in Galatians 2:20, in which Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me [to be crucified].” Therefore, by faith we take up our cross, which we are told that the cross of Christ included us, as our “old man,” and we lay hold of this fact by faith. Being included in the cross did include us, in God’s eye, as a death to our “old man” and then by being “in Christ”1 we were raised in Him to newness of life.2 (see Romans 6:3-7: “do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for the one who has died is freed from sin). Therefore, our new life means we take up our cross in Christ by faith that Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is producing in us His resurrection life to deal with our fleshly soul life, which fights in our soul (our mind and will) against our walking in the Holy Spirit. We must daily take up by faith this walk in the Holy Spirit (see Romans 8: 1-14).3
Simon’s carrying of the cross is interesting in that it can be viewed in two very different ways. Although, Simon was forced to carry Jesus’ cross for Him, he could have refused to be part of assisting in a portion of the crucifixion and suffered the consequences. Probably, Simon did not even know who this person was that was being crucified, since he had just come into Jerusalem from the country and did not know the significance of what was occurring. For this he could be excused. On the other hand, Simon was helping Jesus to make His way to Golgotha and thereby relieved some of his suffering in struggling with the heavy cross. Each of us is guilty of causing the crucifixion of Christ because of our sin and having the sin nature passed to us from Adam. “All of us, like sheep, have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the wrongdoing of us all To fall on Him [Jesus].”(Isaiah 53:6) Christ had to die in order for each of us to be reconciled to God, so in that sense, we were a cause of the death of Jesus. None are innocent. Each of us is guilty, no matter how holy we may appear or how “good” a life we may live. But God’s grace, in the form of Jesus, redeemed us by the death of the cross and His resurrection. Hallelujah. May you cling to Jesus, after you have passed through the cross and the resurrection in your spirit, so that the Holy Spirit may inhabit your spirit and make real the presence of Jesus.
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1 By God’s act we all were placed/baptized into Christ objectively at the cross; but, this only becomes true and effective for each of us subjectively/individually by our belief/faith that this is true and our dependence on this for our individual justification before God. (1Corinthians 1:30; Romans 6:3). Otherwise, it does not benefit us or redeem us from the power and penalty of sin. Faith is the key to everything for us involving God. Every “door”related to our God must be unlocked and opened by the key of faith. The simple faith of salvation is a desperate clinging to Jesus Christ through His cross & resurrection for our salvation, as a child would cling to its parent in a crisis for protection.
2 Being included in the cross by God did not include us in the suffering of Christ or His paying of the penalty for our sins.
3 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the [Holy]Spirit. For those who are in accord with the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are in accord with the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you are living in accord with the flesh, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Romans 8:1-13 (The word “flesh” as used here is not the physical flesh of your body but those lusts derived from our flesh and also the self-centeredness of our souls apart from God.)
