The Other Cross Carriers
“15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. 16 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. 17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18 And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.” Mark 15:15-20
Intro: On the northern coast of Africa in what is now modern-day Tripoli in Libya
There was a Greek settlement known as the city of Cyrene.
The distance from Cyrene to Jerusalem is nearly 900 miles.
Those of Jewish faith who traveled from Cyrene to Jerusalem for the Passover
probably made it only a hand full of times…, or maybe only once in their life time.
For Simon, seeing the walls of the city of Jerusalem come into sight must have been a relief
and a sense of great accomplishment.
Upon arriving in Jerusalem, the city was in an uproar.
While there were normally many people who came to Jerusalem this time of year
There was something more ominous, more worrisome in the atmosphere of the heavy crowds.
Angry mobs filled the streets, some shouting, others weeping bitterly.
It would have been difficult for anyone to maneuver through the chaotic streets
to see what all the commotion was about.
Perhaps Simon heard some of the conversations that Jesus was going to be crucified.
We have no way of knowing for sure that Simeon even knew who Jesus was.
But since the city of Cyrene was a busy shipping port for trade at the time
It is possible…, even likely…, that news about this Jesus who was fulfilling the prophecy of the Messiah
had spread even as far away as Cyrene.
The news that Lazarus who had been three days in the grave but was raised alive again
was also likely to have been talked about all around the city and region
by locals as well as travelers coming into the Holy City.
But either way…, whether Simon had heard any of this or knew nothing about Jesus or not
It doesn’t really matter because he could not have foreseen what was going to happen to him next.
The title of today’s sermon is “The Other Cross Carriers”
There is nothing like changes in one’s travel plan to reveal how we truly handle life.
For myself, going on a vacation or a trip becomes an obsession.
I like to plan months ahead.
I like to get the best flight for the price.
I like to reserve the “perfect” seat either by the window or isle whichever is better.
Stay at the best hotel for the money.
I look at Travelocity and Hotels.com.
I look at reviews people have made of restaurants.
I like to schedule the right amount of travel time and rest time and entertainment time.
My motto is plan, plan, plan.
With an itinerary in hand, I embark out on a journey to make memories.
Only to be met with forces of construction zones, bad weather, heavy traffic, airport delays,
and all the other unexpected changes that are unforeseen.
To say the least, I don’t like “changes in the plan.”
Especially when I am on vacation.
Changes for me equal stress, hassles, and more work.
In the church there is a common saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans!”
While I believe in free will and we have the choices in front of us to make.
The book of Proverbs is filled with truths that put our plans in true perspective.
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Prov. 16:9)
God is telling us to put our energy into pleasing Him.
God’s plans are the only plans that really matter.
God is actually in the plan changing business.
Changing our plans into His plans which actually ends up with something much better than I could ever hope for in the first place.
This is what Jesus did with his own disciples and also what happened to Simeon of Cyrene.
Simon didn't see it coming.
He was trying to make sense of the outrage when a Roman soldier pulled him from the crowd,
ordering him to carry the cross.
Simon must have been mortified.
If this man’s blood gets on me, I can’t celebrate the Passover, that was the whole reason I was there.
He knew that to carry the cross with the blood splattered on it would make him unclean,
and thus unfit to eat the Passover meal.
All those miles he had traveled
All those plans he had made would be in vain.
Surely anger and fear stirred within him.
Anger over a Roman's authority to ask him to do such a thing,
and fear of what would be done to him if he refused to obey.
And then he saw him. Or what was left of him.
The mutilated body of Jesus was almost beyond recognition.
Jesus could barely stand, much less carry the weight of his own cross.
It didn't make sense.
If this was the Messiah, it was not supposed to end this way.
Having no choice, Simon swallowed his pride, took up the cross, and followed Jesus.
Likely it was fear that initially moved him to obey.
As Simon carried the cross through the narrow streets,
It is hard to see the man through the blood.
At some point their eyes must have met.
Simeon must have realized this man Jesus was not a liar or criminal
The hatred and sorrow that came from the crowd was intense,
but Jesus focused on the road ahead of him as he took one agonizing step after another.
Not once did Jesus speak a word of protest.
Simon may not have fully understood who Jesus was,
but surely he recognized that Jesus was no ordinary man.
He may not have been able to participate in the Passover feast,
but that year Simon of Cyrene had an encounter with the Passover Lamb that surely changed his life forever.
Simon of Cyrene is mentioned in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
Matthew only records his name and place of origin (27:32),
but Mark and Luke say that he was “on his way in from the country” (Luke 23:26).
Mark, uncharacteristically, provides the most information about Simon,
adding that he was “the father of Alexander and Rufus” (Mark 15:21),
men obviously well known to Mark’s readers.
Some commentaries believe that the Rufus mentioned here may be the same man Paul greets in his letter to Rome, whom he calls “chosen in the Lord” and whose mother “has been a mother to me, too” (Romans 16:13).
Paul’s knowledge of Rufus’s family tells us how important that day was for Simeon
And what influence it had on his household and future generations.
In a monologue an actor playing Simeon relives what Simeon must have felt.
I looked down and saw my hands stained with his blood.
The blood that I thought would make me unclean
Then I realized It is His blood that makes me clean
The crowd was so thick and the cross was so heavy.
That was the day I helped Jesus carry
I helped Jesus carry my cross.
He hung and died on my cross.
“And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.” Mark 15:21
I. Simon of Cyrene was one of the other cross carriers.
There were two others who carried crosses that day also.
II. The Two Thieves are two other cross carriers.
They too carry their cross to the hill just outside the city of Jerusalem
By now a great crowd had gathered to see these condemned criminals die.
Nearby is a Roman centurion, with an army of soldiers, who is in charge of the execution.
There are members of the Sanhedrin,
and the chief priest, who had condemned Jesus for blasphemy the night before.
There are a few women nearby,
Mary the mother of Jesus,
Mary Magdalene,
and some other women who followed Jesus from Galilee.
And there we see the faces of two other men nailed to crosses on either side of Jesus on a cross between them.
The two men on either side of Jesus have both carried their crosses to the place of crucifixion.
Both of them will die before the sun goes down.
“They crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst” (John 19:18).
Let us take a few moments to think about these two men who were the other cross carriers.
I. First, these two men represent all of humankind.
Yes, every person on earth is represented by these two men on those two crosses.
Everyone here this morning, is represented by those two tragic figures in this scene of the crucifixion.
Like all of us, these two men are sinners.
The Bible says,
“By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).
These two dying criminals have broken man’s law and are guilty.
But they have a far more serious problem than that.
They are sinners facing God.
The Bible makes that clear to all of us.
Some people have committed outward sins, like these two thieves.
Sins that are visible, public, there is no doubt of their crimes.
Others have committed sin in their hearts like hatred, bitterness, unforgiveness, pride, self will.
But everyone has committed sin.
The Bible says, “There is none righteous, no, not one.” Romans 3:10
These two men, who are carried their cross to Golgotha, represent the entire human race.
Let us not deceive ourselves.
We don’t want to get what we deserve we want mercy.
We don’t’ want to judge to sentence us according to our deeds and thoughts and actions.
We want compassion, sympathy, pity.
So these two thieves represent all of us, and all mankind.
The Bible says, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
These two thieves died when the soldiers broke the bones in their legs so that they would die quickly.
They have no one to mourn for them or to cry for them.
It is strange, but death always comes as a surprise.
It is always too sudden.
People are never ready.
What mattered to them as they hung there on crosses?
The money they had stole could not save them.
The friends they had could not rescue them.
There was not deliverance from their crimes.
Only eternity matters.
Five minutes after you die it will not matter if you were as rich as Donald Trump,
or as poor as a beggar on Skid Row.
It will not matter whether you drove a Lexus or a Ford Pinto. (1971 rank one of the 50 worst cars ever made)
There was a huge controversy
Ford estimated the cost of reinforcing the rear end ($121 million)
versus the potential payout to victims of rear end collision resulting in the car bursting into flames
($50 million).
Conclusion? Let 'em burn.
When death comes to you, as it did to these two men on the cross, nothing else will matter but eternity.
The only hope these men have is that Jesus is there with them.
Jesus there on the cross means that atonement has been made for sin.
These two men are both lost.
They are sinners.
They are about to die.
Their only hope is that God has sent Jesus to the cross to die in their place, to atone for their sin.
What a substitute Jesus is, dying in the sinner’s place, to pay the sinner’s debt!
He is suffering on the cross in the place of sinners.
Now “the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
All my sins are placed on Jesus.
These two men thought that they were carrying their cross loaded with their sin.
But reality is the bible the sins and iniquity of us all are laid on Jesus.
They thought they carried their cross.
Simeon thought he was carrying Jesus cross.
But really Jesus was carried them all.
Jesus can take the blame and the punishment for their sins.
And so it is with all of us.
Jesus there on the cross means that God has sent Him there to save us from our sins.
It means that God loves us,
and God gave us His Son to bear our sins, and die in our place, to pay for our sins.
Jesus there in their middle shows that God is approachable.
God is available to save us.
He is between two thieves.
That means God has humbled Himself.
He has come down from Heaven
And has made Himself in the form of human.
He is there to receive all who trust Him. The Bible says, “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him” (Hebrews 7:25).
Anyone can come to Jesus by faith and be saved by Him.
But time is running out for us all.
Mark 15:27 “And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left.”
Jesus says to thief this day you shall be with me in paradise.
We don’t think that way.
We think this guy is a thief.
If he is a thief his is probably a done a lot of other things wrong.
If he is going to get to go to the same heaven that I am going to
He needs to do some good deeds, help an old lady across the street, rescue a poor animal,
give some money to the building fund, get baptized, join the church, start serving on a committee.
But Jesus didn’t tell him to do any of that.
Jesus just saved him because he asked.
One man trusts Jesus and the other one rejects Him.
Both of them are equally guilty.
Both of them are dying in their sins.
There is not a word that one of them is better than the other.
The Bible tells us that both of these thieves mocked Christ, and railed against Him earlier in the day
Mark tells us, “They that were crucified with him reviled him” – shouting insults at Him (Mark 15:32).
These two men were both hardened sinners. There was no difference between them.
They were both lost sinners.
But one of them was convicted of his sin by the Holy Spirit.
Suddenly the Spirit of God touched his heart and he confessed his sin.
The other thief kept on insulting Jesus.
But other man had become sick of his sin, and he said to the other one,
“Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man [Jesus] hath done nothing amiss” (Luke 23:40, 41).
The Bible says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (I Timothy 1:15).
He had watched Jesus dying on the cross.
He heard the prayer of Jesus, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
He saw how loving and caring Jesus was.
And he said, “This man hath done nothing amiss” (Luke 23:41).
He had heard the chief priests accuse Jesus of claiming to be the Messiah, the Son of God.
But suddenly this thief knows in his heart that Jesus really is the Messiah and Saviour.
This man now has a very simple faith, produced in his heart by the Holy Spirit. And he says to Jesus,
“Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom”
(Luke 23:42).
This shows that he trusted Jesus. It was a very simple thing. He held nothing back. He trusted Jesus, and Jesus saved him. And Jesus says to him,
“To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
This thief trusts Jesus, and Jesus pardons all his sins, and washes them clean by His precious Blood.
You don’t have to know very much to be saved.
Your sins will be washed clean by His Blood if you trust Jesus in simple faith.
In a moment of time, this sinful man trusted Jesus and was saved.
There was no doubt about it at all! Jesus was so sure this man was now saved that He said to him,
“To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
The moment you trust Jesus you, too, will be cleansed from all sin, and saved for all time, and for all eternity!
But what happened to the other thief?
The other thief did not repent and trust Jesus.
That second thief had one last chance to be saved, but he rejected Jesus.
The final cross carrier I want to talk about today is U.
III. U
Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. (Mark 8:34)
I like to see Jesus when he steps into my life and commands the wind and the waves to be still.
Because that says to me that he is going to step into my life
and command a still and a calm in all my storms and problems.
I don’t like to see Jesus under the weight of the cross.
The son of God is sweating, God is bleeding,
That says to me wait a minute aren’t we supposed to be able to sleep through life?
I am not very comfortable with this (cross)
When I think of God I see a golden crown filled with jewels,
A royal robe and scepter,
I see a King with an army at his command.
I see someone who deserves respect
Not a God who is beat with a stick and spit upon and mocked in worship.
Not a God who is stripped of his robe and crown and made to wear a crown of thorns.
God is suppose to carry my cross
What is all this about someone else having to carry his cross?
What is this all about that just maybe he is saying to me I have to carry my own cross.
I don’t like to hear that kind of talk.
That is not easy.
I thought life with Jesus was suppose to be easy.
But I have never found it easy to stand up for good in the face of evil.
I have never found it easy to do what is right when my flesh is telling me to do what is wrong.
My life is often a struggle under the weight of work, and family, and bills, and schedules.
Let me ask you this?
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to make a choice between doing something entertaining that you wanted to do.
And coming to church and serving somewhere that you knew God was calling you to go and serve?
We say oh, I have so much to do Lord.
I am just so worn out.
I think that is why Jesus carried his cross to a certain point,
Then Jesus’ cross is put on the shoulders of Simeon of Cyrene
And Simeon who may barely have known who this Jesus was is forced to be the other cross carrier.
Maybe Jesus is saying, Life is about choices.
Life is about struggles.
Life is about things being placed on you unexpectedly.
And sometimes forced upon you unwillinging.
But when it comes to worshipping me you have to drop what you are doing and follow me.
You have to stop and worship me.
You have to give me your best not what is left over.
You have to serve me with all your heart, not just give me a little piece of it.
Simeon was not asked if he wanted to serve on the cross carrying committee.
He was not given the choice like we are free to choose when we want to serve and where we want to volunteer.
There are a lot of people in this church that are very passionate about the things that interest you.
Your cause and your group and your charity.
But what if don’t get to choose?
What if you don’t get to have it your way.
What if the cross was just handed to you?
What if you had to carry the cross even when you didn’t want to carry the cross?
Now we are getting into a whole different level
A whole new kind of worship
It is not on your schedule but God’s schedule
It is not on your terms but God’s terms.
It is not because you like decorating with roses
But because God has said, go out into my garden, out among the thorns and being in roses to my house.
I don’t like it when God changes my plans.
The cross of the Gospel is something that every Christian must take up and carry.
The cross carrying changes our plans.
The cross carrying changes everything.
Take up your cross.
Make an impact in this broken world!
We have worn too many crosses around our necks and on t-shirts,
now it is time to show the world the change the ‘cross’ makes in your life!
Are you listening? Let them see your identity with Christ!
God uses people to get the job done.
Henri Nouwen a Dutch Catholic priest, professor, author and theologian
tells the story of his mother's death and how he was consumed with grief.
Someone asked Nouwen, “Why are you so public about your personal problems?”
Nouwen replied, “I always try to turn my personal struggles into something helpful for others.”
To live is to struggle.
To live is to endure suffering,
To live is to come to grips with pain.
If something you are hurting about can help someone else get through…, then your brokenness is not in vain.
Galatians 6:2 “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
The church is a community designed by Jesus to be selfless.
The church is a community built on mutual support, encouragement, friendship, dedication, service, and love.
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
…, by His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4–5)
The prophet Isaiah spoke of a future time when a suffering servant—the Messiah—would come.
Isaiah indicated that we would know Him based on what He bore and what He carried.
Notice that Isaiah mentioned nothing of a cross.
The prophet teach us that He would be wounded and pierced for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities.
That is the true message of Jesus Christ’s journey to the Cross
I have been part of that community from time to time.
The purpose of worship is to glorify God
and help people make a vital connection with Jesus.
Personal sharing is a cross we all must carry.
A final word that comes to mind is URGENT.
Life or death.
I preach every sermon keenly aware that it could be my last sermon.
I celebrate every Christmas Eve, every Easter, knowing I may never have another opportunity to lead worship for these special occasions.
What do you think Jesus meant by picking up your cross daily?
What are the practical ways you do that?
Are there areas you’re still holding back from God?
Pray: Ask God to give you the courage, strength, and endurance to follow him every day. No matter how tough the obstacles, how long the dark night, how our plans might be disrupted, may we never forget real life starts when we give ourselves to him.
Who gets to carry the cross?
