The Old Rugged Cross

As I read through the last days of Jesus as recorded in the book of Matthew this morning, two verses stuck out and a soft word began to form in my mind. This is my endeavor to dig out that word and bring it to light this morning. Speak, Lord.

Matthew 26:56b: “Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.”

Matthew 27:32: “As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross.”

This painful moment for Jesus was also an incredibly lonely one. The men he had invested so much time and teaching into had disappeared in fear in the most crucial moment. Now, I know that response was God-ordained, but it still struck me that it says they ‘deserted him.’ Imagine that crushing betrayal of watching them run in fear and leave you behind to handle things. It must have added to the hopelessness of the moment, and perhaps is why in the verses preceding chapters he needed to go off and pray alone, reaching that crucial decision that all of us must make in privacy, “Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.” He needed that decision, made alone, to fuel the fight he was about to endure alone.

Then, we see that a few of the disciples were at least around during the court proceedings after this. Peter is mentioned when he denies Him, and Judas’ guilt suggests he watched the trial before the Sanhedrin. In John’s accounting, he shares that he also was there and able to watch some of the proceedings as well.

The only interaction between Jesus and the disciples during the trials that’s recorded is when the rooster crowed the third time, Jesus turned and made eye contact with Peter. Imagine… Knowing that you are truly alone in that moment, then knowing you have been betrayed three times. How lonely he must have felt.

Abandoned and deserted, Jesus then endures the stress of the trial before Pilate, the shame of hearing the crowd of fellow Israelites that he had loved and ministered to for 3 years crying ‘Crucify Him,’ and the ridicule of the soldiers and brutality at their hands. As he started the journey to the hill Golgotha, he must have felt completely wiped out and broken. The stress on his body, the loss of blood, the emotional anguish of betrayal…

Maybe this is why the soldiers found someone to carry the cross? Or maybe it was customary? I’m not sure, but I do know “they met a man” and “forced him” to carry the cross. It was not planned in advance. They simply grabbed someone and forced him, which implies he refused to do it initially and had to be coerced into obedience.

What struck me as I read through this accounting was this, “It shouldn’t have been Simon from Cyrene. It should have been Simon Peter who was standing close by and begged to take the cross off His Master’s shoulders. It should have been Simon the Zealot wanting to protect His Master in the only way available: by carrying the cross up the hill. They should have been waiting anxiously for him to emerge from the Praetorium. And when they saw his condition and how he had been brutally beaten by the Roman guards, they should have been doing anything and everything they could to help, including carrying the cross. In fact, it was to these two Simons that Jesus had said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24). And a second time in Matthew 10:38, “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

Simon from Cyrene was not there for these instructions! As far as we can tell, he was a stranger to Jesus’ teaching. So why is it a stranger who is being forced to carry the cross? Why are his true disciples not there?

I began to imagine times in my life when I have felt completely abandoned and alone. I could never compare those times to the sacrifice and weight of Jesus’ crucifixion, and that is not my goal here. I do, however, remember that in my moments of betrayal when the people I loved the most and had invested in the most seemed to turn their backs on me, I found strangers beside me carrying my cross.

Even in the moments when I was “most alone”, I had God-given help to carry on. Others that I was not expecting came beside me for a season and helped me carry what I was going through.

Yet, we read that Simon the Cyrene was forced to carry the cross. He did not willingly come alongside a Jewish brother in need. He was made to do it.

He was made to do it… He was made to do it…

God had placed him right there in that moment to carry a cross. All of his decisions that day, or even from before that, led him to be standing right in that spot, ready to carry the cross.

And I suddenly felt the Spirit say to me, “You are made to carry my cross, even if you don’t know it yet.”

I imagine Simon the Cyrene did not know Jesus, or maybe he did! Maybe he was part of that crowd yelling for crucifixion! Maybe he was there because he hated Jesus and wanted to see him die, and maybe that is why he had to be forced by the guards into helping Him.

But imagine… Imagine how it felt to be that close to your Savior and not even know it. To be forced to carry His cross, and you do not want to. You have no love for him or desire to help him, but you are forced to carry His cross.

Jesus is saying, “I am using you in this way, because someday this moment may be precious to you. Someday this gift you are giving to me may mean something to you. You may choose to do this willingly someday. You may choose to be my disciple. This is a gift, even if you do not know it. Come alongside me and do the work of salvation, even though it seems repugnant to you now. You are blessed to be involved in this, and you don’t even know it! You are blessed to be remembered in this way, and you had to be forced into it.”

I imagine Simon from Cyrene represented Paul, C.S. Lewis, and the hundreds of other skeptics who have stood against the Messiah, been forced to interact with him, and found the cross to be a joyous burden to carry. What a gift to carry the cross!

Jesus, it is a gift to carry your cross. Thank you for giving me that opportunity before I knew what a gift it was.

I am reminded of a story my childhood pastor told during a sermon. I will never forget this Sunday night message and watching my pastor act out this principle. It has guided me and been a comfort to me many times.

My pastor was an older man, and to my young mind he seemed ancient at times. It was hard to watch him act this out because I was concerned for his safety. I couldn’t tear my eyes off him as he illustrated his words, and perhaps that was his intention.

“When we come to Jesus, we must carry a cross.”

Here, my pastor bent and shouldered a full-size cross, the one we used for our Messiah drama every Easter. It was carried in that production by a young man, half of my pastor’s age.

My childhood heart longed for someone younger to act out the illustration. I didn’t want my pastor to carry what I assumed was such a heavy object on his back.

“The cross is heavy and bothersome at times. It gets in the way and requires our effort. It keeps our thoughts occupied and we must balance everything else against the weight of the cross.”

Here, he began to climb up the choir loft steps. As a child, these steps seemed so high and steep. I had been up there for children’s dramas before and had felt dizzy as I looked down at the ground below me. Surely, it was not safe for my pastor to climb those steps! Especially not while carrying that heavy cross!

“The cross seems to make the journey slow, and we must grow our strength to be able to carry it. Our climb through life is harder because of the cross!”

He climbed slowly as he spoke, pausing to breathe and rest after 3-4 steps. At the top of the loft were two changing rooms for the baptismal area that was centered in the loft. He opened the door of one of the doors as he reached the top.

“This cross is not just heavy. It is also large and bulky. It keeps me from going to some places. It keeps me from going through some doors.”

He attempted to walk through the 7-foot doorway as he spoke, but the large cross, carried on his back, caught in the doorway and stopped him.

“This cross is heavy. It’s bulky. It’s stopping me from what I want to do. Maybe it’s not important at all and I should just put it down.”

Here he set the large cross down. He went through the door that he had been trying to go through before, and as we knew he would, he ended up in view again, standing above the baptismal tank.

“Look!” he cried out to us with passion. “I am now in a dangerous place. I have wandered without the cross into a place that I can fall from. If I had just trusted the cross and kept it on my shoulders, I would not be in such a precarious position right now. It would have kept me from this! It would have kept me on the path Jesus had for me! It would have kept me out of this trouble, but I set down the cross because it was heavy. I set it down because it was bulky. I set it down because it wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to do. That cross was important, and I should have loved it! I shouldn’t have hated it! I shouldn’t have despised it and wanted to put it down as quickly as possible. That cross was my safety and my direction! It was my compass and protection! Why did I ever set down that old rugged cross!”

This passionate speech, given, what seemed to me from several yards below, right on the edge of that tank took my breath. I watched him preach and tears came to my eyes. Would my pastor fall? Would he be ok?

“I must go back to get my cross! I must find my cross and carry it!”

I remember the relief I felt as he turned away from that open tank and came back out the small door to his cross.

“Hear me!” he continued to preach. “You may feel right now like your walk with Jesus is restrictive and too heavy, but, friend, you will reach a day when you will regret setting it down. Love that cross! Love that cross! It is your protection! It is your safety!”

He came down the stairs as he spoke and, though I was just a child and could not understand the true weight of what he was preaching, I cried as his words cut deep into my heart. Even now, some 20 years later, his words still ring in the ears of my heart. I understand them more now than I did then, and this precious direction is more important to me than ever.

The cross gets the heaviest when we begin to despise it. When the path we want to walk becomes more important than the cross we carry, we have taken the full load of that cross onto our own back.

Jesus has said that “His yoke is easy and his burden is light”, and when our eyes are focused on Him and the wonder of His love, we find that to be very true. But when we shift our eyes to the things we want on the timeline we want them, we begin to feel the weight of that cross. We no longer focus on His love and the light burden he asks us to carry. We focus on how heavy it is to not be able to go and do what we feel is best right then.

I am guilty of this, Jesus. I have been swayed in my mind and frustrated when the path I want to walk seems to be inaccessible because of the cross I carry. Jesus, help me to remember your way is perfect. Help me to love that cross! Help me to trust that cross!

I remember another story that I heard, although I do not remember where. In this story, a young Christian is carrying his cross, and he begins to complain that it is too heavy. So the Lord provides him with a smaller one. He continues his way, but soon begins to complain again, “Lord, this cross is still too heavy!” So, the Lord gives him a smaller cross. This pacifies the Christian for a while, but soon he comes to a mountain that needs climbed. He turns to Heaven in frustration again.

“Lord, what I really need is something very light that I can just keep in my pocket. That way I am not hampered by this cross and I have my hands free to climb this mountain.”

The Lord gives him a very small cross and he continues on his journey. He climbs as far as he can, but soon he reaches a chasm between the great rocks of the mountains that he cannot cross. He sits to ponder the situation, and as he ponders, he sees an older Christian coming up the trail behind him.

This older Christian is still carrying the full cross that he was given in the beginning. “My word,” cries the young Christian, “What a shame to see this older man carrying such a heavy weight. He would climb so much better without it.”

The older Christian comes to where the young Christian is. He greets him, then turns to face the chasm ahead. He does not stop, hesitate, or ponder. He simply takes the cross off his shoulder and lays it across the chasm. End to end, the cross forms a bridge from one place to the next. The older Christian leaves behind the younger Christian, regathers his cross on the other side, and continues his climb up the mountain, cross still firmly carried on his back.

The old rugged cross… It protects me. And, yes, it helps me. There are benefits to carrying the cross. There are places in life I can only get to by the help of the cross.

It carries me forward into new heights. The cross takes me where Jesus is calling me, closer to Heaven. I climb with the cross on my back and this song in my heart:

“On a hill, far away, stood an old rugged cross
The emblem of suffering and shame
And I love that old Cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain
So I'll cherish the old rugged Cross
Till my trophies at last I lay down
I will cling to the old rugged Cross
And exchange it some day for a crown.”

In my mind’s eye, I see Simon of Cyrene carrying it up that hill.
“Oh, Simon!” My heart cries out to him, “What an honor! Love that cross!”

And I turn and see myself. I see the cross Jesus has asked me to carry.
“Oh, Ariqua… What an honor. Love that cross.”