Mark 15:21 - Simon of Cyrene - March 23, 2022

Who is Jesus? That may sound like a simple, kindergarten-level question to you but it’s proven to be one of, if not the most difficult question to answer in history. It’s not a new question. This question runs throughout all four gospels. It’s raised after Jesus taught with authority in the synagogue and followed that up by exorcising a demon-possessed man (Mark 1:21-28). It’s raised after Jesus absolved the sins of a sinful woman, when those who had witnessed it asked who is this who even forgives sins (Luke 7:49)? After Jesus had calmed the wind and the waves with just a word, his disciples asked who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him (Mark 4:41)! “Who are you?” Pilate asked Jesus as he stood before him on trial. “Are you a king? Where are you from?” (John 18:33; 19:9). “Who is Jesus?” is the most important question anyone can ever ask because the answer has eternal implications. But behind that question is another question, the question many Jews at the time were asking: “Could this Jesus of Nazareth be the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior?” Such Messianic expectations must have filled our man of the hour, a man called Simon of Cyrene.

So what do we know about this man? Well, to state the obvious, he was from Cyrene. Cyrene was a city in Libya in North Africa. Even though it was in Africa, Cyrene was a Greek city in which the Jews had settled (or better, been resettled) in large numbers. What was Simon doing so far from home? The Law of Moses required Jews to observe the Passover at the place the Lord chose (Deuteronomy 16:2, 11). Jerusalem was that place, and every Jew tried to make that pilgrimage at least once in their life. Simon was likely in Jerusalem on just such a pilgrimage. He was a Jew who had come to celebrate the Passover Festival. Messianic and nationalistic expectations ran high during the Passover. They hoped, prayed and longed for the Messiah to come to restore their nation.

As a Jew, Simon of Cyrene would have been well acquainted with the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah. There were four threads regarding the expectations the Jews held for the promised Messiah. 1) First and foremost was the expectation that the Messiah would be a descendant of David who would sit on David’s throne and would restore independence to God’s chosen people – as in Isaiah 9 (Isaiah 9:6-7). 2) A second expectation was that in the Messiah God himself would break into human history – as in Isaiah 7 (Isaiah 7:14; 52:10). 3) A third expectation pulled the first two together and said that this divinely appointed Messiah would destroy Israel’s enemies and usher in a new age of unprecedented peace and prosperity – as in Isaiah 65 (Isaiah 65:17-25). 4) A fourth expectation, which was hard, if not impossible for the Jews to grasp – was that the Messiah would also be the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. You can understand why many Jews struggled with this prophecy, can’t you? How on earth could a king who suffered and died in such a horrible fashion possibly save his people from their enemies and establish an eternal kingdom? It made no sense. In any event, up until this point no one man had truly fulfilled one, much less all of these prophecies.

No one knows precisely what kind of questions or expectations Simon of Cyrene brought with him to Jerusalem. But it’s probably safe to assume that he did not expect to be forced to carry the cross of a condemned criminal (compare as reverse of 3rd Amendment). But, nonetheless, it happened. There he was, just trying to celebrate the Passover, now forced to carry the cross of a condemned man to Calvary. As he struggled under the weight of this man’s cross, he must have been wondering: “Who is this man and what has he done to deserve this?” The road to Calvary supplied some clues. 1) There were women who wept and wailed over him – few people normally weep over the imminent death of a capital criminal (Luke 23:27). 2) There was Jesus’ response to this weeping: daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Be sure of this: the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never gave birth, and the breasts that never nursed.’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things to the green wood, what will happen to the dry?” (Luke 23:29-31) These were not the words of a hardened anarchist or murderer. These were weighty words; words of prophecy (Hosea 10:8). 3) And if these words didn’t make it clear, the sign Pilate placed over his head on the cross removed all doubt: this man was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews (John 19:19).

What Simon knew previously about Jesus, we can’t say. How long Simon stayed near the cross is also unknown. But this much is clear – Mark further identifies Simon as the father of Alexander and Rufus (Mark 15:21). Alexander and Rufus must have been believers well-known to the early Church – otherwise Mark’s reference to them here wouldn’t make any sense. Quite possibly, this is the same Rufus as the one Paul sent his greetings to at the end of his letter to the Romans (Romans 16:13). The mention of these two men tells us that Simon’s seemingly chance encounter had generated faith.

While there’s a lot of uncertainty regarding this Simon of Cyrene, his carrying of Jesus’ cross does serve to confirm Jesus’ words in John 12: and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself (John 12:32). The cross is the ultimate answer to the question “Who is this man?” It silently and brutally testifies that he is the Suffering Servant Isaiah wrote about. He was despised and rejected by men, a man who knew grief, who was well acquainted with suffering. Like someone whom people cannot bear to look at, he was despised, and we thought nothing of him (Isaiah 53:3). (“We thought nothing of him” carries the idea that no one recognized who Jesus really was – as the entire account of Jesus’ passion proves to be true.)

Does that mean that this was all an accident, a tragic coincidence, a terrible miscarriage of justice; that things would have gone differently if only everyone had recognized who Jesus really was? No. Because according to Isaiah it was the LORD’s will to crush him and to allow him to suffer (Isaiah 53:10). The cross was no accident. It was part of God’s plan from the beginning. It was the Lord of heaven and earth – not just wicked, corrupt men like Judas and Caiaphas and Herod and Pilate – who crushed Jesus, his Servant. The million-dollar question is: why? Why did God the Father crush his own perfect, beloved Son under the weight his wrath on the cross? Isaiah answers that question, too: It was because of our rebellion that he was pierced. He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).

It was something that Simon almost certainly didn’t recognize at the time, but his carrying of the cross is a vivid illustration of what we call “The Great Exchange.” Whether he knew it or not, the cross Simon was forced to carry was really his own – that is, the one he deserved; and the one we deserve. Both he and we deserved to be forced by whips and kicks and shouts to carry a heavy, splintered cross to a hill away from the presence of God to be nailed to it and to suffer the full wrath of God over our sins – suffering which would never end in hell. But by God’s grace, Simon – and we – get to drop that cross at Calvary, and watch as Jesus – the innocent, sinless, Lamb of God – hung on it in our place. What cross are you carrying right now? What sin or guilt is haunting you? What anger or grudge is burning a hole in your heart? What fear or anxiety is keeping you up at night? What sickness or pain is making you miserable? Drop it here, let Jesus take it – and leave it here. Jesus wants nothing more. Paul puts it this way: God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus had to take our punishment so that we might receive his righteousness – that’s why this had to happen; this was God’s plan all along.

We’ve been asking “who is Jesus? But several times Jesus turned that question back on his disciples, who do people say that I am? (Mark 8:27) His disciples reported the confusion of the people: John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others say one of the prophets (Mark 8:28). But Jesus asked all who would call themselves his disciples – and therefore, us – a much more pointed question: who do you say I am? (Mark 8:29). When we look at Isaiah’s inspired, prophetic words, when we look at Simon of Cyrene, that man who carried Jesus’ cross, and when we put all the evidence together, there’s only one possible conclusion: this man, this Jesus of Nazareth who was hung on a cursed tree, is the one – the only one – who fulfills all of God’s prophecies regarding the Messiah. He is the One God had sent to sit on David’s throne as God’s Anointed One to destroy his people’s enemies and usher in an age of unprecedented peace and prosperity – a victory he would achieve as a Servant, a Servant who would suffer and die on a cross. Or, put more succinctly, here is further proof that Jesus truly is the Son of God. Amen.