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Good Friday Meditation
The Rev. Jenn Geddes
Mark 15:21-32
In Mark's version of Jesus' crucifixion Simon of Cyrene is treated almost as a pre-thought to the Crucifixion. Honestly, there is a lot going on and the fact that Simon carries Jesus' cross prior to Jesus' crucifixion is often a forgotten detail. Even as I heard it read just now I thought more about the details of the wine, the time of day, the mocking and of course the actual crucifixion, more than that momentary comment at the beginning that Simon carried the cross. But as I think about our own roles within the story of the crucifixion, Simon's story is an important one.
It says that the soldiers compelled Simon to carry Jesus' cross. I wonder how they compelled him. Likely by force, likely without much choice. But the interesting detail about how Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus suggests that Simon was known to the early Christians. It suggests that this man was known to Mark's audience.
In all likelihood Simon was just a neutral by stander at the time, watching this spectacle- in the wrong place at the wrong time- or was he? I wonder if the soldiers bullied him, if he groaned as the weight of the crossbeam hit his shoulders. I wonder if he wondered what was going on. The truth is, however, that he still carried that cross. Within the ancient Christian tradition it is believed that when Simon left Golgatha he was never the same. According to tradition he and his entire family became Christians, hence why the names of Simon's sons were mentioned. And that's what intrigues me about Simon. He was likely coerced, not compelled to carry this cross, it would have been a painful experience, but out of that pain comes an encounter with Christ.
Good Friday is all about grief and grief is frightening. In grief we are required to recognize, admit, we are even compelled and coerced, into the reality that there are losses in our lives that can interrupt, sometimes without warning, our comfort, our happiness, even our hope. We often do everything we can to avoid grief. I think for me grief is most challenging because it often involves a lack of control. We can not control when grief will hit us or affect us.
But Good Friday, while anything but a good feeling, demonstrates that God sustained suffering and death in body. God knows this pain, especially the pain of grief. In pain, we have a chance to encounter Jesus. We have all been compelled at times to carry a cross- like Simon. We have to carry it- but we are not the ones being nailed to it. We are not the ones who are being taunted in our deepest moments of pain. We are not the ones who breathe the last breath from that place. Poet Alea Peister said, “We watch Christ, like Simon did, watch him shamed and abandoned, watch his body torn apart by a whipping, watch him die, and we do not know what to do. A love expressed in such a lavish willingness to suffer defies everything we think we know about being a Christian.” But like Simon we falter forward- knowing that this is not the end of the story. In pain, we have a chance to encounter Jesus, and move beyond our grief.
English Priest and poet Malcolm Guite wrote the following poem entitled, “Simon of Cyrene Carries the Cross.” I would like to close this meditation with this poem.
In desperation on this road of tears Bystanders and bypassers turn away. In other’s pain we face our own worst fears And turn our backs to keep those fears at bay, Unless we are compelled as this man was By force of arms or force of circumstance To face and feel and carry someone’s cross In Love’s full glare and not his backward glance. So, Simon, no disciple, still fulfilled The calling, ‘Take the cross and follow me.’ By accident his life was stalled and stilled, Becoming all he was compelled to be. Make me, like him, your pressed man and your priest, Your alter Christus, burdened and released
THE SAVIOR ON MOUNT CALVARY