How little these people knew that they were making this man immortal. What a strange fate that is which has befallen those persons in the Gospel narratives, who, for an instant, come into contact with Jesus Christ. Like ships passing athwart the white ghostlike splendour of the moonlight on the sea; they gleam silvery pure for a moment, as they cross its broad belt, and then are swallowed up again in the darkness.
Consider some of the lessons that arise from this incident:
I. The greatness of trifles. If that man had started from the little village where he lived five minutes earlier or later, if he had walked a little faster or slower, if he had happened to be lodging on the other side of Jerusalem, or if the whim had taken him to go in at another gate then all his life would have been different.
II. Note, further, the blessedness and honour of helping Jesus Christ. Though changed in form very truly and really, in substance this blessedness and honour of helping Jesus Christ is given to us; and is demanded from us, too, if we are His disciples. He is despised and set at nought still, He is crucified afresh still. Let us go forth unto Him without the camp bearing His reproach the tail end of the Cross. It is the lightest. He has borne the heaviest end on His own shoulders; but we have to ally ourselves with that suffering and despised Christ, if we are to be His disciples.
III. Another lesson which may be drawn from this story is, that of the perpetual recompense and record of the humblest Christian work. Surely the most blessed share in that day's tragedy was reserved for Simon, whose bearing of the Cross may have been compulsory at first, but became, ere it was ended, willing service. But whatever were the degrees of recognition of Christ's character, and of sympathy with the meaning of His sufferings, yet the smallest and most transient impulse of loving gratitude that went out towards Him was rewarded then, and is rewarded for ever, by blessed results in the heart that feels it.
A. Maclaren, A Year's Ministry,2nd series, p. 45.
Bearing the Cross.
Cross-bearing means now a spiritual action. The only cross in prospect now is a cross for the soul. Such a spiritualisation of the word "cross" began in the teaching of Jesus Christ. In several instances, He said, in various ways, "If a man become My disciple, let him take up his cross and follow Me."
I. Carrying a cross after Christ means, for one thing, enduring suffering for Christ. "Cross" was the name once given to the most fearful engine of agony for the body; and the words "cross," "crucial," "excruciate," and similar words, have come into our language from that material cross; and they now point, in a general way, to what has now to be suffered, not in the body, but in the soul.
II. To carry a cross for Christ means: To have a great weight on the mind for Christ's sake. To carry a cross for Christ means that this suffering and heavily weighted condition should be open, not secret; for the cross-bearer is seen.
III. It means: That the man who is willing to carry the cross for Christ is willing to suffer scorn for Christ. No one carried a cross in the old Roman days but one who was the very refuse of society. To be willing to carry a cross for Christ means willingness to suffer ignominy, willingness to go forth without the camp, bearing His reproach.
IV. View the cross-bearing as something practical in distinction from something only emotional, and answer the question: Who is now willing to become a cross-bearer for Christ? There is much that is called religion that is only useless emotion, and that only belongs to a character that is not made of stuff stern enough to carry crosses. Christ said to the weeping daughters of Jerusalem, as they stood by the via dolorosa:"Weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves."
V. In view of the principle that nothing is accepted by Christ but willingness, I ask: Who is willing this day to become a cross-bearer? Jesus Christ will not have you against your will: if you carry His Cross you must be willing.
VI. In view of the strength Christ gave for this, I ask, Who is willing? As your day your strength will be. Mark the footsteps that are on the road before you. Every cross-bearer found it so. So you will find it.
C. Stanford, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxviii., p. 282.
References: Mark 15:21. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxi., No. 1853; Homiletic Magazine,vol. viii., p. 73.