Carry That Cross

 

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

CARRY THAT CROSS

Mark 15:21-22

21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. 22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull).

NIV

We should be taking the whole of this event, right up to the end when Jesus breathes his last, but it is too much to take in and consider how this affects us. We do not know much about this Simon of Cyrene, other than the reason he was pressed into service. It is certain Jesus was at the point of exhaustion. He had started the day before in Bethany and made his way into Jerusalem for the Passover meal. At the conclusion of that meal, he and his disciples walked back across the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane, and by now it was already evening. At this time Judas and the crowd had shown up and arrested Jesus, taking back across the Kidron Valley into Jerusalem to the house of the high priest. This trial went on all night and it was not until morning that they determent that he was worthy of death and took him to Pilate. At this point, Jesus had been up, without sleep for twenty-four hours and the day was not over yet. After hours of this so-called trial at Pilates and then being flogged and beating, he now is required to carry his own cross for several miles. It is no wonder, he faltered under the weight and so here is this Simon, pressed into service to carry the cross of Jesus. How many of us have been pressed into service to carry our own cross? The reality is that we all have been called, or pressed into service, to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. It seems natural that we might think following Jesus is obeying all his commands, and indeed we are called to that task. But in another sense, as we are here in the moment of the cross, it might also be seen that we are to pick up our cross and follow Jesus to Golgotha. There is where we crucify our old self, dying to self, in a sense, and as we will see, be buried with Jesus, and be resurrected a new creature with Christ. The whole of our Baptism was playing out our burial and resurrection, so it would make sense we first needed to pick up our cross and follow Jesus to the place of the skull. The problem seems to be that old self does not want to stay on that cross. It wants to raise up and demand to be heard. This is the war that wages within, as Paul says. Why can’t it just stay dead? The fact may be that we did not crucify it, or are actually able to do so. We want to. We want that old self to remain dead and buried, but this war is a fact, and we do wage this war within. We do that which we do not want to do and we do not do those things we want to do. That is not an absolute, all the time, for there are times when we are able to say no, and not do that which we do not want to do and there are times that we do that which we want to do. That is we do that which we have been called to do, but at times we relapse into an attitude, an emotion, a response, and even a behavior we have been called to nail to our cross. We have been pressed into service and need to continue to carry that cross.