To Bear His Cross

After the Roman soldiers mocked the Savior and pretended to worship Him, they smote Him and led Him away to be crucified. Matthew recorded, “And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross” (Matthew 27:32). I have written before about this Simon and how this experience may have led him to receive the gospel and follow Christ spiritually. My dad mentioned the story to me yesterday and highlighted the fact that he was the only mortal we know of who was able to help the Savior during the atonement. We know that in Gethsemane “there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him” (Luke 22:43). The Savior also seemed to have been seeking some support from His three chief apostles, but didn’t get it because they fell asleep. When He came back after some initial time in the garden alone, “And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray” (Matthew 26:40-41). He may have been looking for them to pray for Him during this hour of most exquisite need, and it seems that they fell asleep instead. It is ironic that it was another Simon, not the chief apostle, who was there to carry His cross. But Simon Peter certainly made up for it, and ultimately He did carry the Savior’s cross in the most dramatic way when he was crucified upside down as tradition holds. The Savior, after His resurrection, told Peter this: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.” John clarified, “This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God” (John 21:18-19). Peter, who did not carry the Savior’s physical cross did follow the Savior all the way to the cross Himself.

               The account above from Matthew about Simon of Cyrene seems to suggest that the Savior did not carry His cross at all, but the record in John clarifies that the Savior did carry it for at least part of the journey to Golgotha: “And they took Jesus, and led him away. And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha” (John 19:16-17). Elder McConkie made this comment, “Then he carried his own cross until he collapsed from the weight and pain and mounting agony of it all.” Simon of Cyrene then took the cross upon his own back and followed Jesus to the place of crucifixion. What a privilege it must have been—and perhaps he did not realize it at the time—for him to perform this act of service to the Son of God in that most bitter hour. The words of Jacob to us remind us of this scene when he suggested that the righteous saints of the Holy One of Israel are those who have “endured the crosses of the world” (2 Nephi 9:18). Jacob also invited us with these words, “Wherefore, we would to God that we could persuade all men not to rebel against God, to provoke him to anger, but that all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world; wherefore, I, Jacob, take it upon me to fulfil the commandment of my brother Nephi” (Jacob 1:8). Perhaps in the moment Simon of Cyrene felt shame as he carried that cross, believing that onlookers might view him as the one who was going to be crucified. But Jacob invites us to suffer any shame that may come to us because of connection with the Savior and to bear, like Simon, the cross that we must carry to sustain Him. Jesus invited His disciples in mortality, “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34). This is what Simon literally did, in the sense that he took up the cross of Jesus on his back and then followed him physically to Calvary. The story and these scriptures likewise invite us to bear the crosses we have because of our discipleship and follow the Savior to where He invites us to go.