Flashback Episode — The Spiritual Cross: Mark 15:21-24

We’ve taken almost an entire year moving up to this point in the gospel narrative, and we now come to the passages that describe the road leading to the cross. However, in this event that all four gospels include, we discover something amazing: The four gospels don’t describe the same thing. In a unique turn of events, one of the gospels seems to contradict the other three.

Let’s read together this event and discover what happened. To represent the first three gospels, let’s read from the gospel of Mark, chapter 15, using the New Century Version. Starting in verse 21, Mark describes to us what happened by saying:

²¹ A man named Simon from Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was coming from the fields to the city. The soldiers forced Simon to carry the cross for Jesus. ²² They led Jesus to the place called Golgotha, which means the Place of the Skull. ²³ The soldiers tried to give Jesus wine mixed with myrrh to drink, but he refused. ²⁴ The soldiers crucified Jesus and divided his clothes among themselves, throwing lots to decide what each soldier would get.

The road to Golgotha in Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include a previously unknown character. Simon from Cyrene had been minding his own business and was simple coming into the city when the soldiers spotted him and perhaps because Jesus was having difficulty carrying the cross because of the whipping and beating that they had done earlier, the soldiers force Simon to carry Jesus’ cross.

The way Mark describes this scene, and specifically that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus implies that the early church members knew who both Alexander and Rufus were. This makes me think that carrying Jesus’ cross had a powerful impact on Simon, and being forced into this situation drew Simon to Jesus in a way that no other event could have.

We don’t know if Simon had known, followed, or heard Jesus preach before this point. It is very possible. All we do know is that Simon, possibly reluctantly, steps into the pages of history to help Jesus when He needed help, and that at least two of Simon’s children were known among those in the early church.

However, John’s gospel describes Jesus’ road to Golgotha differently. John, chapter 19, verse 17 tells us that:

¹⁷ Carrying his own cross, Jesus went out to a place called The Place of the Skull, which in the Hebrew language is called Golgotha.

Is this a glaring contradiction between the gospels and a reason to distrust what John wrote? On the surface it might be, but part of me wonders if John is describing something different from what the other gospel writers included.

First off, John was the disciple who was most likely present for this. The other disciples had scattered and were hiding, so they would have learned about this event from others, and the gospel writers, specifically Mark and Luke who were not direct disciples, learned about what happened from other sources.

On one level, we could understand John to be clarifying a misconception that had been growing among the early church that Jesus barely made it very far with the cross. At the most basic level, John could be describing how Jesus successfully carried the cross all the way to the hill He was crucified on, but then lacked the strength to carry it up the hill. On seeing this, that is when Simon is recruited. This is one possible way we could harmonize this supposed contradiction.

However, on another level, John could be speaking more spiritually than literally here, and John could be describing Jesus’ “cross” not as the wooden structure that He would be hung from, but the burden that He carried taking all of humanities sins with Him to the crucifixion. In this symbolic understanding, Simon, while helping with the wooden beams for an undetermined length of the trip, could not have helped Jesus carry the emotional weight of the cross weighing on His heart.

John doesn’t give us many, if any, clues about how literal we should take this verse. The verses that surround it sound pretty direct and not symbolic, so it makes sense that this would be more of a literal description, but why would John be so direct about this when the other gospel writers are clear that Jesus received help?

It’s possible John emphasizes the event this way because he wants to draw our attention onto how Jesus bore His cross, specifically the cross that only He could bear, because that is what He challenged His followers to do as well. Luke, chapter 14, verse 17 records Jesus telling the crowd of followers: “Whoever is not willing to carry his cross and follow me cannot be my follower.” This challenge is problematic when we read in three of the four gospels that Simon carried Jesus’ literal cross to Golgotha.

However, Jesus’ challenge to His followers includes a layer of symbolism mixed within the literal. Many of Jesus’ followers were crucified on crosses, however not every one of them. Some of Jesus’ disciples traveled outside of the Roman Empire to share the good news of Jesus, and while they were persecuted for what they shared, they didn’t face any literal crosses.

But every one of Jesus’ followers, from the first century to where we are today has faced challenges, and our faith in Jesus that pushes us against the current of the world’s culture challenges us, and some might describe it as a cross we bear for Jesus. Earlier this year, we read about Jesus telling His disciples and His followers that they would be hated because of Him, and that if the world hated Him, it would not treat them any better.

In this regard, John’s gospel describes Jesus carrying a burden that only He could carry, and the only burden that He alone could carry is the sins of humanity. This is the strongest case for a spiritual reading of John’s somewhat contradictory passage.

However, regardless of whether Jesus only received a little help with getting His literal cross up the Golgotha hill, or whether Simon helped Jesus with His literal cross while Jesus was struggling with the emotional, spiritual cross that only He could bear, we can know that Jesus pressed forward towards the cross to take the punishment we deserved.

Jesus bore His cross like He challenges us to do. We have been brought into the world to do something that only we can do, and while each person’s responsibility will look a little different, Jesus has challenged each of us to carry the cross of His commission like He carried the cross of His big mission to this world!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As always, be sure to seek God first and place Him first in your life. Know that God brought you and I into this world for a reason and He challenges each of us to live out His mission for our lives. If we don’t know His mission for our lives, we are challenged to grow closer to Him to learn what His mission for each of our lives is, and to then step out in faith as He slowly reveals to us what He wants us to do for Him.

Also, always be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn from God directly. The Bible is the best place to learn about what God is like, and the Bible is the best foundation to have when growing closer to Jesus. Don’t take anyone else’s words or ideas about the Bible and let them distract you from reading and discovering the Bible for yourself. As I always challenge you to do, read the Bible for yourself to discover what it teaches you about God, about Jesus, and about what He has promised for each of us!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or deviate away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!