Palm and Passion Sunday 2013
When I was younger both movies and TV had a stable of folks who were character actors. they were not the stars, but you recognized them and knew their part was important even if not above the title. I’d like to take 2 critical lesser roles. First, Simon of Cyrene always grabs my attention. When I was a child, we attended the spiritual discipline of the 14 stations of the cross in church. (as does the local Episcopalian church). The fifth station was Simon helps Jesus carry the cross. Simon helped Jesus to bear the cross.( Cyrene, now Libya, was a longtime Greek port city,named for a spring of water, and had a rebellion by Jewish community complaining of discrimination the period of the writing of the gospels. had some medicines as part of its exports). Even Jesus did not bear the cross alone. If it was the cross beam, it perhaps weighed 18-20 pounds, so the entire cross would be 45-50 pounds. In the Legend of Veronica’s veil. the imprint of the face of Jesus affixed to her veil, as in the shroud of Turin’s image. Simon did not need one, the image was burned into his memory.Maybe it wasn’t only physical help that Jesus needed, Maybe he was already feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders and back already beaten to a bloody pulp.Jesus needed a helping hand.
.We have a tale with two Simons, of course. Is it an accident that while Simon Peter denies Jesus in the courtyard, this Simon will bear the cross with Jesus? Simon Peter had talked a good game about his being willing to die with Jesus. Here here is warming himself by a fire when he is accosted. Peter means rock, but here he crumbles like cheap plaster. On the other hand, when he first called Jesus Messiah, he could not bear to hear Jesus link that role with suffering and death. In a way, peter was telling the truth; he did not know the man, his courage, his sacrificial love. In the narthex we have symbols of the apostles, including simon Peter. His cross is shown as legend has it that he would not permit himself to be crucified in the same position as Jesus. St Peter’s may actually be built over an ancient shrine to his memory. The nuns told us that peter had scars on his face because he cried so hard when he came to grips with his denial of Jesus.
To what degree does forgiveness make us all Simon of Cyrene? (book on track star prisoner of war, Volf, ) To what degree did Peter need to become a Smon to himself for his denial? To what degree need he bear the cross of the accusing woman at the fire? When is it asking too much to do so? After all, Jesus bore its weight and penalty. Simon did not die for him.After all, Jesus selects dimon Peter to be a leader of the fledgling church, a powerful sign of forgiveness. Can we look at Simon negatively as moving him toward his death as an accomplice of sin’s power.(Note:The experiment with seminary students who had a paper to deliver-the inconvenient burden placed on him-).
I wonder if Simon grasped what he had done. I wonder what he thought every time he gave someone a hand, if the cross came to him? In (Mark’s gospel) his sons are known to the disciples. Are they part of the community? Some days we act as one Simon or the other. God is not finished with us yet and holds the door open in acts large and small, to define who we are, this day.
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