03/04/2026
SIMON OF CYRENE reflects...
I did not wake up that morning expecting to carry a cross.
I was just passing through.
Just another man in the crowd.
Just another face in Jerusalem.
Just another pilgrim with dust on my sandals and plans for the day.
I had children to think about.
Work waiting.
Responsibilities.
A life that felt ordinary.
And then Rome interrupted me.
The soldiers’ hands were rough.
They did not ask.
They seized me.
“You. Carry it.”
I remember the weight of it before it ever touched my shoulders.
The splintered wood.
The metallic scent of blood already soaked into it.
The murmuring crowd.
The sound of women weeping.
The hatred.
The chaos.
And then I saw Him.
His back was torn open.
His face barely recognizable.
Blood matted in His hair.
A crown of thorns pressed into skin.
He was trying to carry it.
Trying.
But His body was giving out under the weight.
And suddenly, that weight became mine.
I wanted to protest.
I wanted to say, “This is not my fight. I have done nothing wrong. I do not belong in this story.”
But before the words could leave my mouth, the wood pressed into my shoulder.
The cross was heavier than I imagined.
It dug into flesh.
It scraped bone.
It pressed the air out of my lungs.
And I was angry.
Angry at the soldiers.
Angry at the crowd.
Angry that my day had been interrupted by someone else’s suffering.
But then I looked at Him.
He was close enough that I could hear His breathing.
Labored.
Shallow.
Determined.
His eyes met mine.
There was no resentment there.
No shame.
No apology.
Only love.
Love?
For me?
I was the one forced to carry His cross.
I was the unwilling participant.
The drafted helper.
The man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And yet when His eyes met mine, it felt like I had been chosen.
Chosen.
I thought I was helping Him.
But somewhere between Pilate’s Hall and Golgotha, I realized something terrifying and holy, He was letting me carry it.
The weight on my shoulders was wood and blood and splinters.
But the weight on His shoulders was the sin of the world.
My burden was temporary.
His was eternal.
And still…
He let me step into it.
He let me feel the heaviness.
He let me taste the cost.
He let me walk beside Him in the suffering.
I had planned to simply observe Passover.
Instead, I carried the Lamb.
I did not know then that this cross would not be the end.
I did not know that three days later the stone would roll.
That death would bow.
That the One I walked beside would rise in glory.
All I knew was the weight.
And sometimes I think about that day when my life was interrupted by obedience I did not volunteer for.
I have come to understand something since then.
Some crosses we do not choose.
Some burdens find us.
Some callings feel forced upon our shoulders by circumstances we did not pray for.
But if you look closely—
He is always near.
Breathing.
Bleeding.
Walking beside you.
And what feels like punishment
may be proximity.
What feels like interruption
may be invitation.
What feels like inconvenience
may be initiation into glory.
I thought Rome conscripted me.
But Heaven had written my name into the story long before that morning.
I carried His cross for a mile.
He carried mine for eternity.
And now when I feel the weight of obedience,
when I feel pressed into service I did not plan,
when suffering brushes up against my life without permission—
I remember His eyes.
And I no longer ask,
“Why me?”
I whisper instead,
“Let me be close enough to feel the weight.
Author unknown
