…Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross. Matthew 27:32 NASB
Simon’s day began as an uneventful day. Now around mid-day he’s heading into Jerusalem from the country, as a mere passer-by Mark tells us. He was just a common guy with two sons living his life. That would all change this Friday. Simon was not the man who coined the acronym T.G.I.F., ‘Thank God It’s Friday’.
Look at Simon and we find one of the first issues of why cross bearing is such a challenge to human flesh – it interferes with daily life. The cross isn’t something just reserved as a religious symbol mounted in a sanctuary or hanging around one’s neck as a piece of jewelry. No, the cross interferes with life as you or I had it planned. And it does so every day.
This challenge of cross bearing delineates superficial faith and weak faith. A weak faith can bear a cross, but a superficial faith will not. It seems too much of Christianity today is filled with superficial faith misdiagnosed as weak faith. Weak faith can be strengthened; superficial faith must be repented of. It is much like the lukewarm faith Jesus promises to vomit out of His mouth.
A weak faith is often a new faith yet untried. Cross bearing will change that. Superficial faith is most often that found in those who have dabbled around the church for some time, although it has its new adherents as well. It looks upon cross bearing and sees nothing but inconveniences. Superficial faith comes up with excuses but the one it often hides itself behind is, ‘my faith is too weak’. The blame is laid upon weakness when it’s really the resident resistance of the uncommitted heart of superficiality. It shows up in others areas of one’s life ‘having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.’
It’s a character of the unregenerate flesh carried into the religious realm, but not surrendered to the power of Christ’s life giving blood. And so while some decry anything interfering with the visibility of the cross at the front of a sanctuary, they avoid its display in life. It interferes, it’s inconvenient, it dictates life, it draws attention away from the bearer and onto itself, and frankly it’s embarrassing.
Superficial faith does not love its neighbor as itself. Only love inherited from Christ reciprocated back will overcome the interference of the cross. You see, cross bearing ultimately is for the sake of my neighbor. Like for Simon of Cyrene, cross bearing wasn’t just for the tired Jesus, it was for lost humanity.
Lord, I praise You everything changed for Simon that Friday. Teach me I pray to love my neighbor that the cross I bear would yield blessedness for him as Simon’s doing so ultimately did for me.
