Check out (in the link above) the six week Bible study course featuring Ron Mahler’s book, Radical Apprentices: Risky and Rewarding Discipleship Rediscovered through the Book of Acts, as hosted by Discovery Church in Bowmanville, ON. Each week comes with a video interview of the author, assigned readings from the book of Acts, as well as the coordinating chapters from the Radical Apprentices book and group study questions.
Read a review of the book from Amazon:
“…They forced him to carry the cross.” Mark 15:21
We’re told in the gospels that a man was chosen to carry the cross for Jesus Christ—his name was “Simon” the Cyrenian (from Cyrene, present day Libya). The city of Cyrene bears some biblical significance. In the book of Acts Jews from Cyrene were present in Jerusalem when they heard the Lord’s disciples speak in their native language at Pentecost (see Acts 2:11). Cyrene had a large Jewish community consisting of settled Judean Jews who also had a synagogue in Jerusalem where they would also go to attend feasts (see Acts 6:9).
One could wonder whether Simon’s experience of having to carry the cross for a brutally beaten Jesus of Nazareth, profoundly impacted him on a spiritual level; so much so that he was one of the “men from Cyrene” who later preached the Gospel to the Greeks, as documented in Acts 11:20?
Was Simon a Jew to begin with? Was he an African who converted to Judaism?
Did his curiosity concerning Jesus’ claims lead him to Jerusalem that fateful day?
Was he there to attend the Passover?
Was he an enemy of our Lord?
We don’t know much, if anything, about this man, and yet his role in the drama that surrounded the last, agonizing hours of our Lord’s earthly life before He was crucified, is one that is unique and symbolic. Simon’s act of carrying the cross for Jesus on the Lord’s pain-filled path to Golgotha is memorialized in the fifth station of the Cross in the Roman Catholic tradition.
Simon was not allowed to simply witness the suffering of our Lord. Rather, he will forever be known as one who was picked out of a crowd to take part in relieving some of that suffering. Maybe some of us wish that we could have been in Simon’s shoes and be able to give something back to God for what His Son had to endure for us. Simon couldn’t have known how privileged he was to have the opportunity to touch and talk to the Saviour of the world; to have His precious blood stain his clothes.
By the time Jesus collapsed in front of Simon His suffering had already reached many stages. If we were Simon (knowing now what we couldn’t have known then), what would we have said to the Lord? Would we have commenced preaching about who He really is? Would we have asked to be crucified with Him? (Indeed His disciple would be, albeit in a spiritual sense; see Galatians 2:24). Or, would we, in horror, have turned from the sight that Isaiah says was “Like one from whom men would hide their faces”? How would we have handled the presence of the cross?
Jesus could have handled His cross many different ways.
He could have immediately judged the authorities who abused Him; showering them with words that would have caused them to tremble and expire on the spot. With a piercing look He could have slayed those who jeered Him as He moaned and who wagged their blasphemous fingers at Him. Jesus could have given them an ultra-convicting ten-point sermon on hell if He so chose to. Our Lord could have summoned all the angels in service to God to come down and relieve Him of His excruciating pain and the injustice of it all.
Yes, Jesus could have done a lot with the cross that fateful day; but what He did do, He did out of love for us.
We don’t know what became of Simon from Cyrene. We don’t know how the Cross of Christ touched his life or what he did with what he saw (and carried). Was he repulsed by the whole ordeal and the sight of Jesus or reduced to tears of faith?
The presence of the cross demanded that Simon do something. That day, Simon had to carry it and walk the same suffering road as Christ. Simon was forced to carry Jesus’ cross by the Roman officials. Today we’re asked to carry it by faith in the One who died on it for you and me.
Today the cross still demands that we do something, that we make a decision.
We can choose to trust the cross or reject it; we cannot, however, afford to ignore it. Our individual destinies hang in the eternal balance. Jesus’ sacrificial death for a sin-ridden humanity at Calvary demands a response from each and every person–the religious and irreligious alike. Though none of us desires to look upon suffering, let alone experience it; nonetheless, Jesus bids that we come and die with Him; that we die to self so that we may find everlasting life in Him (Matthew 16:25).
When we do, we enter into the reality of what it means to carry His cross, in a spiritual sense. Only then can we truly identify with the Saviour and walk a similar, costly road of suffering for His sake.
CROSS-WALKING: Why does the account of Simon from Cyrene having to carry Jesus’ cross fascinate us still? Have you ever speculated on why God chose this particular bystander? How does Simon’s symbolic “cross walk” parallel ours in a spiritual sense?
My God, I cry out…but you do not answer… Psalm 22:2
Hymn 22
There’s a popular saying within Christian circles that goes, “Trust in the dark, what you learned in the light.” In other words, the child of God must lean on their knowledge of His loving nature whenever the trials of life leave them wondering “where” He is in the midst of them. Something tells me that the person who penned the twenty-second psalm did exactly that. Without so much as a whiff of God’s intervention while surrounded by mocking enemies, David articulated words that render Psalm 22 a provocative prayer for the disciple of Christ to pray in times of great desperation. David obviously felt frustrated by the LORD’S seeming lack of response to his cries for help. If the would-be king of Israel had ever reached the point of feeling outright abandoned by His God, it’s while he wrote this psalm.
Lamenting the space he feels between him and His God, David repeats the phrase “Do not be far from me” (22:11,19). The psalmist desires for the removal of the divine distance. Amid the sheer mania of sensing God’s rescue was nowhere in sight, a white-knuckled David clung to his knowledge of the Lord’s goodness and faithfulness to His people in times past (22:3-4). It got him through! Somehow, within the frantic heart of David, he refused to interpret the felt absence of God, as His abandoning of his servant. No loving parent could leave their vulnerable child to fend for themselves, and neither, David believed, could his God!
Psalm 22 was part of Israel’s worship liturgy, where it’s collective stanzas were put to music. A psalm (or song) that begins with thoughts of being “forsaken,” ends with the certainty that “generations” to come will acknowledge the “righteousness” of Almighty God (22: 30, 31). It’s opening words that cater to despair suddenly give way to those of confident hope in the LORD’S deliverance.
Given it’s pendulous scope, Psalm 22 reads like a microcosm of the Christian spiritual life. The psalm’s content and thrust reflects the plethora of seasons that compile the life and testimony of Jesus’ disciple. Some of these seasons usher in spiritually-charged breakthroughs and victories while others barrage our pilgrimage with instances that test our faith and trust in God.
Accordingly, the psalm provides an example of how the child of God can remain authentic before Him while entrenched in personal, spiritual battles and turmoil. In the psalms, David often railed at God with words that are as honest as they are heartbreaking. So when we come up against harassing thoughts of God having somehow forgotten us in our plight, David’s words in the twenty-second psalm remind us that we have a peer in him; but also in the Son of God. The most authentic person to ever life, Jesus Christ, quoted the opening words of Psalm 22 while on the cross.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:46
Like David, the Saviour of the world knew what it felt like to cry out to God, only to hear crickets. However, like David, our Lord also refused to believe that His Father had abandoned Him. Instead, a dying Jesus entrusted both his “finished” ministry along with His spirit to the Father. (Luke 23:46). Psalm 22 prefigures the suffering of Christ at Calvary with all its situational as well as spiritual parallels. In addition to the gross forms of physical pain and agony the Lord endured while on the cross, He also experienced the silence of the Father and the absence of His hands-on care.
We may well experience our fair share of Psalm 22 moments throughout our Christian life. Yet there’s ample evidence within the psalm—indeed throughout the entire Bible—assuring us that God will neither leave us nor forsake us. In fact, the times when God moves us from despair to deliverance serve as opportunities for Him to put a new song in our mouths; a hymn of praise to the God who hauls us out of the mucky mires of our spiritual journey (Psalm 40:1-3).
CROSS-WALKING: Can you recall a desperate time when, like David, you felt as though God had forgotten or even forsaken you? How does Psalm 22 aid us in practicing authenticity before God in prayer? How in particular is Jesus’ suffering (just prior to and while He was on the cross) reflected in David’s words?
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In November 2020 Ron Mahler will release his new (and 5th) book entitled A Sacred Rendezvous: Pursuing Jesus’ Heart for Solitude in a World of Noise and Trouble (Word Alive Press). Mahler commenced this project in 2017 after winning the Best New Canadian Manuscript Award for his fourth book–The Banquet, at the Word Awards Gala in June of the same year. You can read the Introduction to his new book by clicking on the link at the top of the home page.
Check out ‘The Radiance Of Moses’ by Ron Mahler @recd_mahler on #hopestreamradio on #SoundCloud? #np https://t.co/bCs4MUYyTw
Ron is set to commence editing his forthcoming (and fifth) book- entitled A SACRED RENDEZVOUS, which follows Jesus’ pathways into solitude and intimacy with the Father. This project has already been described as “great” by an experienced professional in the publishing industry, and contains some of Mahler’s finest writing.
Ron Mahler's books & other odds and sods 