Bearing Our Cross After Jesus…

 

Bearing Our Cross After Jesus…

Now as they led Him away, they laid hold of a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, who was coming from the country, and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus.

And a great multitude of the people followed Him, and women who also mourned and lamented Him.—Luke 23:26-27

Such a graphic, but beautiful picture Luke paints here of what each of us, as believers, are to do as  His “followers”; bear our cross and follow after Him. The cross is a symbol of shame, humiliation, forgiveness and victory.  It was an instrument of death that brought life to the world and eternal glory to Jesus, the Son of God. Mark 15:21 tells us that Simon was the father of Rufus and Alexander.  In Romans 16:13 we learn that Paul sent greetings to Rufus and Alexander. The fact that Paul included greetings to them most likely means that they were well-known Christians. The implication is that Simon got saved—perhaps, on the very day that the Romans compelled him to carry the cross of Christ.

As any true believer can attest, the cross is the point where we see God’s love the clearest.  (We love Him because He first loved us.) It is where we go to be forgiven and obtain peace.  It is where mercy and truth meet. It is where righteousness and peace kiss. It is there that Truth springs out of the earth and our Righteous Father looks down from heaven.  It is there at the cross as we make Jesus’ footsteps our pathway, that we get to know Him and share in the fellowship of His sufferings. It is at the cross where we learn to die to what we want and live for the will of our Father in Heaven.  It is at the cross where we find our true life.

What they meant for evil then, Jesus used for good not only to perhaps the saving of Simon, but also to the instructive illustration that Simon portrays in bearing the cross after Him.

Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy angels.—Luke 9:23-26

And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.—Matthew 10:38-39

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.—John 12:24-26

Truly, we can say with Paul..

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.—Philippians 3:7-11