Well, we're in the middle of our study of the Germanus Personae, and if you're like me, you had to look that up to figure out what it means, but really simply what it means is that we're going to be looking at assorted people we meet along the path that Jesus takes to the crucifixion. And we've had three studies together, and after today, there'll be three more studies, so we are in the middle of our studies together about the people that we meet. along the way to the crucifixion. And today we're going to look at a visitor from the country who carried the cross for Jesus. And to do that, we're going to look at Mark 15, verses 16 through 32, which are there printed in your order. And we'll be really looking at verse 21, but by way of context, verses 16 through 32. And the soldiers led him, that is Jesus, away inside the palace, that is the governor's headquarters. And they called together the whole battalion and they clothed him in a purple cloak and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him. Hail, King of the Jews. And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they let him out to crucify him. And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, the King of the Jews. And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, ha ha, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. So also the chief priest with the scribes mocked him to one another saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with Him also reviled Him. Well, we're dealing today with Mark's record of Jesus' final steps towards the cross and the road that Jesus begins to walk to that cross is called the Via Dolorosa. the road of sorrows. And what you have to understand is that Jesus has already suffered greatly before he even begins his journey. In Gethsemane, he contemplated the cup that was set before him and when he gazed into it, he saw that he would take upon himself sin. and would receive the wrath of God that would fall on him and that he would absorb and deflect God's wrath. And as he looked into that, he would say that his soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. As he looked into that cup, he thought, I could die. for what I see there. Then at a trial of Caiaphas, he was struck by one of the priest's servants. And as that trial concluded, the temple guards blindfolded him and began to beat him and taunt him. They spat on him and told him to prophesy and tell them which one had hit him and spat upon him. Then somewhere near the end of his political trial, the Romans scourged him. They took what was known as a flagellum, a whip that had tied into it bone and metal. And they took that whip and they whipped him with it. This is a brutal thing. The historian Eusebius said of martyrs who were killed in this way, that as they were scourged with this flagellum, that it tore them deep. so deeply that it was tearing them to deep-seated veins and arteries, so that the hidden contents of the recesses of their bodies, their entrails, and organs were exposed to sight. Some died simply from the scourging. The scourging probably left Jesus with bone and cartilage showing. And what happened to Jesus would bring to light what the prophet Isaiah said would be true of the Messiah. His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man, and his form marred beyond human likeness. Finally, with the torture over, the Roman soldiers presented him as the coming king. And they pressed a thorny crown down on his brow, made him wear a purple robe, crimson with his blood. Then when they became bored, the soldiers put his own clothes on him and led him out to be crucified. And that brings us up to the story that we find in Mark chapter 15. But I want you to notice something. Jesus' journey along the road of sorrows, though excruciatingly painful and humiliating and degrading by any standards, It wasn't an unfortunate series of random events. It wasn't a winding road that meandered with no purpose. Rather, though, it was a winding road filled with deep pain and suffering. It was not a road laced with accident or happenstance. But all that is taking place with Jesus has been designed by God himself. William Booth, when he started the Salvation Army, said of his mission and purpose in doing that was that some seek to live within the sound of church and chapel bell. In other words, they seek to live comfortably. But William Booth said, I want to run a rescue shop in a yard of hell. That was Jesus' mission in coming to us That was his purpose in enduring these events. And as he makes his way down the road of sorrows toward Golgotha and the cross, we see a Jesus who, instead of being made silent and ineffective by these events, we see a Jesus who, while on his way to be crucified, while Satan and all of hell eagerly looked on and awaited a presumed victory, Jesus' path crosses certain people's path. He meets them. He changes their life forever and rescues them from hell. That's what Jesus is doing. It's not random. It's not by accident. It's not by happenstance. It's the divine plan of God. And the first person that Jesus meets on this road of sorrows is Simon of Cyrene. He's there in verse 21. And I want you to notice that there's a divine choreography taking place here. I want you to imagine the scene as Jesus is being let out of the governor's official residence, out of Pilate's residence. He was placed in the middle of what is called a quaternion, a company of four Roman soldiers. And the patibulum, that cross beam, because the vertical beam would already be at Calvary, set in the ground. But Jesus would be carrying on his back the patabulum, that cross piece that would be connected to the vertical piece, weighing perhaps as much as a hundred pounds. And Jesus began to carry it on his shoulders. And as he stumbled along the path to Golgotha, a soldier went out ahead of them carrying a wooden placard which read, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. the trumped-up political charge for which Jesus would be crucified. He was led on the longest route possible because when a person was crucified, one of the purposes of the crucifixion was public execution. And it was used in those days not simply to get rid of a criminal but also to teach lessons to the public, to deter, to intimidate the populace. And the soldiers did enough of these. They were common enough for them to simply go about their business as usual. It was a normal crucifixion day for them. But it wouldn't be a normal day for at least one person along the path. A surprise that when it comes to redemptive history was eternally significant. Remember that Jesus was a carpenter in the prime of his life and would have been used to carrying heavy things. Jesus wasn't a weak man but a strong man physically. To be a carpenter in that day probably meant that you worked with stone. So Jesus was perfectly capable on any other day of carrying a hundred pounds on his shoulders. So bearing the cross beam, no matter how heavy, would have been well within his normal capacity. But he had already undergone, as we saw, scourging and prolonged agony with much blood loss. And with his arms extended wide, he began to reel around, as Kent Hughes put it, like a wounded butterfly. What a picture to put in your mind. Here, Jesus, the Son of God, stumbling. trying to carry this cross like a wounded butterfly. And the soldiers determined that he wouldn't make it and that he could possibly die before getting to Golgotha, something they were concerned with because as it happened, they were charged with getting Jesus to Golgotha for crucifixion. So what happens next was not out of compassion, but self-interest. And you notice in verse 21, They compel a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, to carry Jesus' cross. And this man, Simon, had left his home in Cyrene, which won't mean much to many of us until you realize that Cyrene is in modern-day Libya, and most likely the city of Tripoli. So think about what you see on the TV screens this week. as they show Libya, as they show the resurgence moving into Tripoli. That was most likely where this man was from. And all the commentators understand him to be a Jew living as part of that ancient people who had fled from the Holy Land, known as the Diaspora. And Cyrene had a large population of Jewish people. In fact, in Jerusalem there was a synagogue for Cyrenians. So enough people were going from Cyrene in Libya, modern day Libya, to Jerusalem. And perhaps this man was there for the Passover celebration. But when he left his home and ordered a journey to Jerusalem, there's no way he could have had in mind what was in store for him on this particular visit. And as he made his way from the country into the city, he was confronted by a crowd and all the commotion they were making. And at the center of this commotion was a man, Jesus Christ, carrying a cross. Imagine Simon is merely making his way into the city, minding his own business, and he turns the corner and he sees this commotion unfolding in front of him. Fine enough, he thinks. I'll just make my way around all of this commotion. I'll just wait for it to pass by and go on my way. But that doesn't work for him. He's seized by these soldiers. He's compelled by them. Hey, you, carry this. And so now he finds himself with a patibulum on his back following after Jesus. And notice here that in God's choreography of these events, we can learn something of what it means to be a disciple. In this choreography of Simon of Cyrene bending under the weight of the cross beam and following Jesus' footsteps, we see a dramatic picture of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus has already explained that being a disciple is about carrying a cross. The disciples of Jesus were not individuals who dressed in a particular way. There was nothing to suggest that Jesus' disciples were known simply by their dress. The disciples of Jesus were not individuals who were marked by particular songs that they liked to sing. They would have sung the same songs as many of their contemporaries. It wasn't as if they were listening to Christian music. That's not what marked the disciples. The disciples of Jesus were not individuals who were known by the books they carried around with them. There's no way that people could have said, oh, they must be a disciple because they're carrying that book and whistling that tune and dressing like that. The disciples of Jesus were not individuals who were known either by their political affiliation. No, the disciples of Jesus were known as being the people of the cross. The disciples of Jesus were cross carriers. They understood that the story of Jesus was a story that centered on this pivotal event, that Jesus was moving relentlessly towards the cross and there in his death was the answer to their sins. But they recognized too that the story of the cross wasn't simply the messy bit and then you can forget about it. They recognized that being a Christian wasn't just seeing and agreeing to the fact of what they were seeing with their eyes, that Jesus died on the cross. No Christian of the day would have said, there's where it ends. But they would have said, no, that's just the beginning. That what it means to be a Christian is to follow after the Lord Jesus, even if it means carrying the cross. They understood that the message of the cross was imprinted on their lives. They were forever to be identified with Jesus who had borne their sins in his body on the cross. And to the extent in which that is true in the first century, it is to be true for us in the 21st century. Therefore, in our seeking to live out the message of the gospel in our own culture, our methods as well as our message need to be cross-shaped. If Christians are to make an impact in their culture along the lines of what Jesus says to do, then this picture of Simon moving behind Jesus under the burden of the cross is a good picture for us to have in our minds. Alistair Begg has said that it's to Christian shame that we present to our culture a Christless Christianity, a crossless Christ rather. Yet Christians are so often tempted to present to our culture a crossless Christianity. Now what does a crossless Christianity look like? Well it looks like Christians presenting that to be a Christian means being successful. A crossless Christianity means that Christians present to the world that what it means to be a Christian is having it all together. That what it means to have a crossless Christianity is that Christians present to the world that they know all the answers to all the questions. That Christians present to the world that they never make mistakes. In other words, a crossless Christianity is a lot like contemporary evangelicalism. You feel that to be true? That oftentimes what you see from those big talking heads in the evangelical world is that what it means to be a Christian is that you have no problems. That you can answer any question. That you've got the world by the tail. That you own it. You have it all together. But that kind of message is dangerous, it's catastrophic, it's actually inept and futile and useless because it conveys to our culture a standard by which none of us lives. Do you have it all together? Do you have all the answers? Do you have the world by the tail? Do you never make mistakes? You see, if you talk to somebody in crisis as a Christian and you tell them, listen, here's what you need to do. You need to not make any more mistakes. You need to have it all together. You need to have all the answers. Is that helpful? Is that really what the gospel says? You see, living with that kind of message will ensure that we will make zero contact with those whose lives are broken and buffeted and fallen and downhearted, who feel themselves not to know the questions or the answers, who feel that the world is crushing them, who feel like they have no hope and no possibilities. You see, the gospel's not pick yourself up by your bootstraps. The gospel is not clean yourself up and have all the answers. But the gospel says, listen, Jesus Christ had to go to the cross for you. He had to bear on his shoulders the sins that you've committed. That there's nothing you can do to deal with the sin to make yourself right with God. That Jesus Christ was himself compelled by design, by divine design to go to the cross. And the gospel is not, hey, clean yourself up and have Jesus as the icing on the cake. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is that you have nothing to offer God. You have nothing to barter with Him, to make Him say, now you can come into my kingdom. The only thing you bring in this equation is your sin. And to be a Christian is to come to Him and to say, I have none of the answers. I have no ability in myself. I have no way of coming to your Father, Jesus Christ. unless you deal with my sin on the cross. And then what it means to follow after him the rest of our lives is to be like Simon of Cyrene carrying this cross piece, recognizing that our life from now on is following after Jesus Christ. It's saying no to self. It's death to self in our sin. Following Jesus means laying down our lives. It means sometimes taking on the same kind of humiliation that he did. And if we have never felt the weight of the cross, if there is no sacrifice, if there are no occasions of humiliation, then ask yourself if you really are a follower of Jesus Christ. But that image is not only sobering, it's also encouraging and heartening for those who do truly follow Jesus Christ. Perhaps you're saying, listen, I've tasted my share of humiliation. I've borne my cross all these years. There's hope. This is a message that should enliven us and bolster us because we have one who is acquainted with our sorrows and our grief and our struggle and our humiliation and our bearing of our crosses. Charles Simeon was a pastor in Cambridge, England. Holy Trinity Church, the end of the 18th century, beginning of the 19th century. He pastored a church there for 50 years. And he was right on the cusp of Cambridge University. And he received a lot of flack for his preaching of the gospel. So much so that I believe the first ten years of his ministry, the wealthy people in the church, back then you paid to have a pew, they would lock their pews and make people sit in the aisle if they were going to hear Charles Simeon preach. He faced humiliation and opposition. But he wrote this. One day when I was an object of much contempt and derision in the university, I strolled forth, buffeted and afflicted, taking my little Greek testament in my hand. I prayed that God would comfort me with some cordial from his word. And opening it, the first text which caught my eye was this. They found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear his cross. Simon, you know, is the same name as Simeon. It was the very word I needed. What a privilege to have the cross laid on me to bear it with Jesus. It was enough. I could leap and sing for joy. And then he says something that makes him sound really modern. Lay it on me, Lord. Lay it on me, Lord, I cried. And henceforth I bound persecution as a wreath of glory around my brow. So you have this image of what discipleship is, bearing the cross and following Jesus. And here's Simon unwillingly drawn into an encounter with Jesus, forced to carry Jesus' cross, and yet modeled the posture of all true discipleship. But there's something else here. We've noticed this divine choreography. We've noticed how Simon is a great picture of what it means to be a disciple. bearing a cross. I want you to notice the last thing. Notice the divine grace that's shown to us here. And here on Simon's routine journey to Jerusalem, in a moment of time, his life is completely changed forever. So ask yourself, is this just Simon being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Perhaps Simon was thinking that. Oh, if I had only taken a left instead of a right, I would never have had to carry this cross. Do you think that's what's going on here? Do you think Simon of Cyrene was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or do you think perhaps he was in the exact right place at the exact right time? I'm going to make a very broad statement without fully backing it up, mainly because I believe all the scriptures actually back it up. But nothing happens by accident. Nothing happens by accident. Many of you Christians here today are keenly aware of the events in your own life that led you into an encounter with Jesus Christ. And as you think back over your lives, you're aware of the people or events or moments in time, though you might have listed them as happenstance or circumstance then, can now, with eyes of faith, see that God's hand was at work in bringing you into an encounter with Jesus Christ. Let me just say, too, that I know that some of you can relate to the Simon of Cyrene, the Simon who was compelled, compelled by the soldiers. Perhaps some of you are here today because you had a co-worker who's been compelling you to come along with them. Perhaps you're here today because you have a family member who's just relentless and compelling you to come along to church with them or a friend. I encourage you, whatever has compelled your encounter with Jesus today, don't view it as happenstance or coincidence. Mark has reached a defining moment in his gospel, a pivotal moment. Indeed, world history would never again be the same because of the events he describes here. And then they're in Matthew's gospel and they're in Mark's gospel as well. You can read them for yourself. And what Mark is doing is bringing us to a pivotal moment in his gospel. And that is that the cross is the greatest event in history of debate and controversy. It means if the account of Jesus is true, if who Jesus is and his birth and his life and his death upon the cross and his burial and his resurrection and his ascension to God the Father, if all of that is true, it is the single greatest moment in all of history. And if it's true, how can you live your life in any other way except orienting yourself, all that you have, all that you are, to that single greatest event in all of history? And that's the whole reason Mark is writing his gospel, actually. He's saying, look at these events. You can test them out for yourself. There were eyewitnesses to all these things. There are other views of what's going on in Matthew's gospel, in Luke's gospel as well. in non-Christian, non-Jewish historians who are writing at the same time saying, these are the events that took place. And Mark is writing to us and saying, look, here are the events now. Who do you say Jesus is? Who do you say that he is? You've got to deal with all of this information. and all of the facts from the Gospels. In Simon of Cyrene, he saw Jesus hoisted up on the cross. He heard Jesus say, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. He saw the crowd at the foot of the cross hurling insults at him. He heard the conversation. He was there. Jesus prays to his Father and asks them, as he's there on the cross, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. You see, here are all these people around Jesus heading to the cross, and they don't get it. They're all watching it unfold, but they're blind. Therefore, Mark is telling us, they're all spiritually unconscious. They're all spiritually dead. They're all spiritually asleep. So what we have here is a whole slew of people who are spiritually unconscious except one person. There's one person here who's not, who doesn't remain spiritually unconscious. And as Mark paints this picture for us, he's not just saying, who do you say Jesus is, but which are you? Are you the spiritually dead and unconscious? Or can you see Jesus for who He is? Are you conscious? And Jesus is praying to His Father through this whole ordeal. Him crying out to people around Him, which we learn in Luke's Gospel. He cries out to the daughters of Jerusalem, the women who are around with probably tears in His eyes. The reason He goes through this whole awful chain of events which led Him to the cross is because He wants us to be spiritually awake, alive, to see, to understand. But unless he helps us, unless the Father helps us, we're not going to be able to see. There's a natural blindness over all of our eyes when it comes to these things. All these very different people in this story with very different reactions to Jesus, all spiritually blind except one. Which are you? Which are you today? Are you like the many who are around Jesus, completely missing who he is? Are you like Simon of Cyrene, whose eyes that day were opened up, who was given eyes to see Jesus and faith to believe that he was who he said he was, that he is who he says he is? Now if you're sitting there and you look at verse 21, you might be thinking, now how in the world do you know he became a Christian? I know that because Mark includes something that none of the other gospel writers include. Did you catch it? Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Now to some of you that may just seem like, you know, Duff James, the father of Olivia. But actually Mark, all the commentators say this, Mark, it makes no sense for Mark to include this unless the people to whom he is writing know who Alexander and Rufus are. And the people to whom Mark is writing are the Christians in Rome. And actually, the Apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, he says, greet Rufus, chosen by the Lord. So Mark here is writing to a group of Christians in Rome and he says, Simon of Cyrene, you know, father of Alexander and Rufus. And that makes no sense unless those two are known by the Christians in Rome. You see that little hint that Simon would have taken in all that he was seeing. And the only real explanation that Alexander and Rufus are known by those Christians in Rome is that they must have been. They must have been known by all of them. They must have been in the church. It means that since Alexander and Rufus were these prominent Christians and their father carried the cross for Jesus, it's extremely likely that Simon came to believe in Jesus by faith. Somewhere along the line, Simon, who had been press ganged into bearing the cross, had come to believe in Jesus and what he had done. And if that's the case, it's a wonderful little touch on the part of the gospel writers, a little insider piece of information for the early church, allowing them to read it and recognize that when Jesus was at his weakest, when Satan was at his strongest, when hell was unleashed in all its fury, the grace of Christ was working in a silent way in Simon's life. Just think about that. Jesus being scourged, cartilage and bone and entrails and organs showing through. When hell is rising up in what they think is a victory, in seeing Jesus at his weakest physical moment, when they think defeat is only moments away, Jesus, with his grace, is still at work. And not only in the life of Simon of Cyrene, but through him. Can you imagine Simon going back and telling the story? You'll never believe what happened to me on my way into Jerusalem. The most amazing thing, I saw Jesus. Have you seen Jesus? Are you spiritually conscious? Are you a disciple of his? Having seen him, do you go now and say, the most amazing thing has happened to me? Let me tell you about it. I've seen Jesus. What an amazing divine choreography that's taking place here. What an amazing picture we see of discipleship, of following after Jesus. What an amazing picture of God's divine grace, that even when it seems that Jesus is at his weakest, he's still saving. He's still drawing men and women to himself. I hope that's the way you feel about your own Christian experience. that you feel compelled to Jesus, drawn to him, your eyes having been opened, and now you can see him. And now, like Simon of Cyrene, you want to tell others about him. What amazing grace. God working in our hearts, drawing us to himself. saving us. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you and praise you that you have sent to us the Lord Jesus, that he took upon himself bearing our sins and his body upon the cross, that you have drawn many of us to yourself, wiping the scales off of our eyes, allowing us to see Jesus for who he is, taking us from being spiritually unconscious, to breathing life into us and making us spiritually conscious. Father, what amazing grace that you would save any one of us, but that even through us as Christians, you can work and use our voice and our lives to tell others about the Lord Jesus. And in that way, your gracious hand works through family and friends, drawing others to the foot of the cross, that you may bring them into right relationship with you, to have life eternally. As we recognize the truth of Jesus coming in the flesh, dying upon the cross, being resurrected, and ascending to heaven, we have hope in ourselves. for ourselves in Jesus Christ, that though we die physically, we'll have life eternally with you spiritually, and for hope of the resurrection as well, that we may live with you for all eternity. Father, thank you for these blessings. Thank you for the grace in Christ that you show to us. If we're here this day and do not know you, pray that you would give eyes to see, hearts to understand, and faith to come to you, laying our lives at the foot of the cross, trusting in you for the work you've done there, being compelled to come to you. We need your help to do this, to be able to see this, to give us life. We pray for these things in Jesus' name, amen.