By: Andrew McCarroll
We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You.
Because, by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world.
Consider how weak and weary Jesus was. At each step He was at the point of expiring. Fearing that He would die on the way when they wished Him to die the infamous death of the cross, they forced Simon of Cyrene to help carry the cross after Our Lord.
In the passion narratives in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we hear about a man being seized into
helping Jesus carry His cross. At this point, Jesus is condemned to die, has
fallen once, was visited by His afflicted mother, and now has a complete
stranger forced into helping Him under the weight of the cross. On that day, Simon
was simply passing through Jerusalem on his way from the Cyrene. He saw a common
crowd of people who were following the normal Roman execution of a criminal,
and this was nothing new for Simon to see in the Roman Empire. He did not know
Jesus, most likely had never heard of Him, and definitely did not know that he
would be forced into helping the Incarnate God. However, Simon is commanded and
forced by the Roman soldiers to take a break from his journey and help this
complete stranger, Jesus, who is staggering to His own cruel death.
We hear it said all the time, and
especially in the season of Lent, that we should take up our crosses throughout
our life and unite them to the cross of Jesus. We all have crosses to bear, and
we look to the example of Jesus’ passion and death to see how we can give
greater glory to God. However, what about the times when we are thrown into
other people’s crosses? What about when we are forced into helping strangers
with the crosses they bear in life? We can be so fixated on our own crosses
that we can resist, like Simon, in being thrown into helping others to pick up
their cross. There are plenty of crosses we are forced into just by us being
here and now, just as Simon happened to be in that place at that time to help
Jesus. We see crosses in our world, our country, and even our Church. We did
not ask to be thrown into helping with these crosses, sometimes we resist, or
maybe we would like to forget that they are even there. During this season of
Lent look for the crosses that we have no choice in being involved with. Look
for the crosses that we try to forget, ignore, and resist. Look for these
crosses which we are forced into, like Simon of Cyrene, and help to pick them
up and follow behind the back of Jesus seen to our eyes as a stranger.
Jesus, send forth your grace upon those you call to church leadership. Help them to accept and affirm others' gifts in the building of community, in proclaiming the message and in reaching out in service.