Just who is Simon of Cyrene?
Cyrene was a town located in northern Africa, in which there was a Jewish community of 100,000 Palestinian Jews who had settled there in the 3rd century BC. They had a synagogue in Jerusalem, and many would go on pilgrimage there for the annual feasts, such as the feast of the Passover, celebrated the night before Simon appeared on the scene with Jesus. However, the name itself doesn’t prove that Simon was Jewish, although the Jewish Peter was originally named Simon. What’s clear, however, is that Simon is from Africa, and that he assisted Jesus on the way of the cross.
Nothing in verse 26 of today’s reading suggests anything about Simon’s motivation, other than that he was seized and pressed into service in carrying Jesus’ cross. For a period of time, he carried it behind Jesus, perhaps all the way to the cross. Did he have any idea whose cross he was carrying? Did he learn what that cross could do for him and for anyone who believed that the One who died there was doing so for his sins, and for the sins of the whole world? Did he see in these events the most amazing act of love ever, or yet another example of astonishing cruelty? We don’t know, though tradition holds that Rufus and Alexander, disciples mentioned by Mark in 15:21, and by Paul in Romans 16:13, were sons of Simon of Cyrene, and that Simon himself may have been among the “men of Cyrene” who preached the gospel to the Greeks in Acts 11:20.
So who is Simon of Cyrene? A character who appears at a time when God was at work in human history; or perhaps you and I when God is at work in this time. Who knows whether, at those times when we are pressed into service, into hard service, that God may be at work in ways that we cannot understand. Our reaction to our being inconvenienced or worse may hold the key as to whether we go on to become even more deep and fruitful disciples, or whether we become or remain bewildered pawns in the midst of grand events that we can’t understand.
Which Simon will you be today?
