Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 15:21

And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.

21. they compel ] The condemned were usually obliged to carry either the entire cross, or the cross-beams fastened together like the letter V, with their arms bound to the projecting ends. Hence the term furcifers = “ cross-bearer.” “Patibulum ferat per urbem, deinde affigatur cruci.” This had a reference to our Lord being typified by Isaac bearing the wood of the burnt offering, Gen 22:6. But exhausted by all He had undergone, our Lord sank under the weight laid upon Him, and the soldiers had not proceeded far from the city gate, when they met a man whom they could “ compel ” or “ impress ” into their service. The original word translated “ compel ” is a Persian word. At regular stages throughout Persia (Hdt. viii. 98; Xen. Cyrop. viii. 6, 17) mounted couriers were kept ready to carry the royal despatches. Hence the verb ( angariare Vulg.) denotes (1) to despatch as a mounted courier; (2) to impress, force to do some service. It occurs also in Mat 5:41, “Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.”

Simon a Cyrenian ] The man thus impressed was passing by, and coming from the country (Luk 23:26). His name was Simon, a Hellenistic Jew, of Cyrene, in northern Africa, the inhabitants of which district had a synagogue at Jerusalem (Act 2:10; Act 6:9).

the father of Alexander and Rufus ] St Mark alone adds this. Like “Bartimus, the son of Timus,” these words testify to his originality. From the way they are mentioned it is clear that these two persons must have been well known to the early Christians. Rufus has been identified with one of the same name saluted by St Paul, Rom 16:13.

to bear his cross ] The cause of execution was generally inscribed on a white tablet, called in Latin titulus (“ qui causam pn indicaret,” Sueton. Calig. 32). It was borne either suspended from the neck, or carried before the sufferer. The latter was probably the mode adopted in our Lord’s case. And Simon may have borne both title and Cross. St Mark does not mention our Lord’s words on the way to the women (Luk 23:28-31).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Mar 15:21

And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian.

Bearing the cross

I. In going through the history of the fact, our thoughts must glance along the links of the connection between the last appeal of Pilate, Behold, the Man, and the subject which claims our attention now.

II. We pass from the historic fact to the challenge founded upon it. In view of what is now meant by cross bearing, we ask, Who among you is willing to become a cross bearer for Christ? The only cross in prospect now is a cross for the soul. Carrying a cross after Christ means, for one thing, some kind of suffering for Christ. View the cross bearing as something practical, in distinction from something only emotional, and answer the question, who is now willing to be a cross bearer for Christ? Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and your children! On the roadside near an old Hungarian town, grey with the stains of time and weather, there is a stone image of the great Cross bearer, and under it is sculptured this inscription in Latin; Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow. The thorough woe-begoneness of that image, remarks an old scholar, used to haunt me long: that old bit of granite-the beau-ideal of human sorrow, weakness, and woe-begoneness. To this day it will come back upon me. Natural sensibility is not irreligious; but, considered in itself alone, it is not religion. With all the pain of bursting heart, and all the leverage of straining strength, Simon, bearing the cross for Christ, is the perpetual type of one who not only feels for Christ, but who tries to do something. I charge you by the crown of thorns, that you shrink from no ridicule that comes upon you simply for Christs sake. On July 1, 1415, when John Huss had to die for Christs sake, and when, on the way to the dread spot, the priests put upon his head a large paper cap, painted with grotesque figures of devils, and inscribed with the word, Hoeresiarcha! he said, Our Lord wore a crown of thorns for me; why should not I wear this for Him? I charge you by the truth that Christ was not ashamed of you, that you be not ashamed of Christ. In view of the strength assured to each cross bearer, who is willing? (Charles Stanford, D. D.)

Carrying the cross for Christ

Christ comes forth from Pilates hall with the cumbrous wood upon His shoulder, but through weariness He travels slowly, and His enemies urgent for His death, and half afraid, from His emaciated appearance, that He may die before He reaches the place of execution, allow another to carry His burden. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel, they cannot spare Him the agonies of dying on the cross, they will therefore remit the labour of carrying it. They place the cross upon Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country. We do not know what may have been the colour of Simons face, but it was most likely black. Simon was an African; he came from Cyrene. Alas poor African, thou hast been compelled to carry the cross even until now. Hail, ye despised children of the sun, ye follow first after the King in the march of woe. We are not sure that Simon was a disciple of Christ; he may have been a friendly spectator; yet one would think the Jews would naturally select a disciple if they could. Coming fresh from the country, not knowing what was going on, he joined with the mob, and they made him carry the cross. Whether a disciple then or not, we have every reason to believe that he became so afterwards; he was the father, we read, of Alexander and Rufus, two persons who appear to have been well-known in the early Church; let us hope that salvation came to his house when he was compelled to bear the Saviours cross. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Simon helping Jesus

Little did these people know that they were making this man immortal! Notice in this connection:

I. The greatness of trifles. Had Simon started from the little village where he lived five minutes earlier or later, had he walked a little faster or slower, had he happened to be lodging on the other side of Jerusalem, had he gone in at another gate, had the centurion not fixed on him to carry the cross, all his life would have been different. And so it is always. Our lives are like the Cornish rocking stones, pivoted on little points.

1. Let us bring the highest and largest principles to bear on the smallest events and circumstances.

2. Let us repose in quiet confidence on Him in whose hands the whole puzzling overwhelming mystery lies. To Him great and small are terms that have no meaning. He looks upon mens lives, not according to the apparent magnitude of the deeds with which they are filled, but simply according to the motives from which, and the purpose towards which, they were done.

II. The blessedness and honour of helping Jesus Christ. Though He bore Simons sins in His Own Body on the tree, He needed Simon to help Him to bear the cross; and He needs us to help Him to spread throughout the world the blessed consequences of that cross. For us all there is granted the honour, and from us all there is required the sacrifice and the service of helping the suffering Saviour of men.

III. The perpetual recompense and record of humblest Christian work. How little Simon thought, when he went back to his rural lodging that night, that he had written his Name high up on the tablet of the worlds memory, to be legible forever. God never forgets, or allows to be forgotten, anything done for Him. We may not leave our works on any record that men can read. What of that, if they are written in letters of light in the Lambs Book of Life, to be read out by Him, before His Father and the holy angels, in the last great day. We may not leave any separate traces of our service, any more than the little brook that comes down some galley on the hillside flows separate from its sisters, with whom it has coalesced in the bed of the great river, or in the rolling, boundless ocean. What of that, so long as the work, in its consequences, shall last?

IV. The blessed results of contact with the suffering Christ. Only by standing near the cross, and gazing on the Crucified Jesus, will any of us ever learn the true mystery and miracle of Christs great and loving Being and work. Take your place there behind Him, near His cross; gazing upon Him till your heart melts, and you, too, learn that He is your Lord, and Saviour, and God. Look to Him who bears what none can help Him to carry-the burden of the worlds sin; let Him bear yours; yield to Him your grateful obedience; and then take up your cross daily, and bear the light burden of self-denying service to Him who has borne the heavy load of sin for you and all mankind. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The compulsion of Simon

The Persian monarchs had a service of carriers or post, and these were called angari; they were allowed to seize on any horses and equipages they needed, to demand entertainment wherever they came, free of expense and this proved a great grievance. The word passed into use among the Greeks (), and the Romans exercised pretty freely the same rights of requisitioning. When the Baptist said to the soldiers, Do violence to no man, he doubtless referred to this system of extorting the use of their horses, their beasts, even their own work, out of subject people, without payment. (S. Baring Gould, M. A.)

Simon helping Jesus

We are not told as much, but we may conclude that Jesus had fallen under the weight. He seemed unable to bear the cross any further. Perhaps He had fainted from the loss of blood and from the long fasting. He sank on the pavement and could bear the wood no longer. Something of the sort must have occurred, or the centurion would not have halted the convoy, and ordered that the cross should be transferred to another. This was not done out of compassion, but out of necessity. Jesus could not bear it any further; therefore, in order that the place of execution might be quickly reached, someone else must be got to carry it. No Roman would carry the cross. To do so would dishonour him. The soldiers looked out for someone, and seized on Simon. They were wont thus to requisition men and animals for the service of the State. Simon was a foreigner, a native of Lybia in Africa, a dark man, possibly not exactly a negro, but so dark-complexioned that he went by the name of Niger, or the Black Man. He was coming into the town, probably laden with the wood for the fire on which the Easter lamb was to be burnt, for on this day of the preparation the Jews were wont to go out of the city and collect the necessary wood, lay it on their shoulders and bring it home. So now, on the day of the preparation, the Lord carries on His shoulders the wood for the new sacrifice, on which He, the Lamb of God, was to have His life consumed. As He goes, He meets Simon carrying the wood into Jerusalem for the typical lamb. The soldiers at once seize Simon, make him cast down his load, and take on his shoulders the burden of Christs cross. He was the first; he, this African, to take up the cross, and follow Christ; he, the representative of the race of Ham, the most despised of all the descendants of Noah, that on which the yoke of bondage seems ever to have pressed. And now, how wonderful, if this our conjecture be true. The Romans and Greek, representatives of Japhet; the Jews, representatives of Shem; and Simon, the representative of Ham, are all united in one stream, setting forward to Calvary. Each, this day, gives a pledge of conversion; the centurion, the son of Japhet; the thief, the son of Israel, of Shem; and, first of all, the Cyrenian, the descendant of Ham Simon was compelled. He was not, at first, willing to take it; if, as we suppose, he was carrying his bundle of wood, he was constrained to lay that down. So must we lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, that we may follow after Jesus, bearing His reproach. Simon shrank both from the burden and from the shame, and the natural man shrinks from the cross of Christ, shrinks from the cross that God lays on us. He compels us to bear the cross; and though we may wish to escape it at first, yet, if like Simon we submit, and bear it in a right spirit, it will bring us, as it did Simon, to meekness and patience, and a more perfect knowledge of Christ. (S. Baring Gould, M. A.)

Shape of the cross

The shape of the cross on which our Lord suffered has been much debated. Some ancient Fathers, fancying they found a typical reference in the crossing of the hands over the head of the scapegoat, and in the peculiar mode in which Jacob blessed his grandsons, often assumed that it was in the form of what is commonly called a St. Andrews Cross; others again, seeing in the mystical mark or Tau set upon the foreheads of the righteous in Ezekiels vision a foreshadowing of the cross, concluded that it was like that which bears the name of St. Anthony, in form like a capital T. It is far more probable that it was what is known familiarly as the Latin Cross. It was prefigured by the transverse spits which the priest placed in the Pascal lamb. Its four arms, pointing to the four quarters of the globs, symbolized the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of Christs universal Church. It is a strong argument in favour of this form that the inscription was set above the head of the Crucified, which would be impossible in either of the other forms. (H. M. Luckock, D. D.)

Sharing the cross with Jesus

Jesus was pleased to take man unto His aid, not only to represent His Own need, and the dolorousness of His Passion, but to consign the duty unto man, that we must enter into a fellowship of Christs sufferings, taking up a cross of martyrdom when God requires us, enduring affronts, being patient under affliction, loving them that hate us, and being benefactors to our enemies, abstaining from sensual and intemperate delight, forbidding ourselves lawful recreations when we have an end of the spirit to serve upon the ruins of the bodys strength, mortifying our desires, breaking our own will, not seeking ourselves, being entirely resigned to God. These are the cross and the nails, and the spear and the whip, and all the instruments of a Christians passion. (Bishop Jeremy Taylor.)

Simon bearing the cross

A scene for all the ages of time and all the cycles of eternity; a cross with Jesus at the one end of it, and Simon at the other, suggesting the idea to every troubled soul, that no one need ever carry a whole cross. You have only half a cross to carry. If you are in poverty, Jesus was poor, and He comes and takes the other end of the cross. If you are in persecution, Jesus was persecuted too. If you are in any kind of trouble, you have a sympathizing Redeemer. Let this be a lesson to each of us. If you find a man in persecution, or in sickness, or in trouble of any kind, go up to him and say, My brother, I have come to help you. You take hold of one end of this cross, and I will take hold of the other end, and Jesus Christ will come in and take hold of the middle of the cross; after a while there will be no cross at all. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

A strange episode

Simon was probably a pilgrim to the feast; possibly had not known of the existence of Jesus Christ before; is not now seeking Him. But Christ crosses his path; and forced to yield a detested service, Simon learns in the brief companionship of a few hours enough to lead him to yield to Christ the service of a life. There is something very characteristic about this story. The Saviour is perpetually crossing mens paths in life; doing so sometimes painfully with some awful thought, painful aspect, thwarting some plan, spoiling some holiday pleasure, or some effort to get gain. And constantly we see the pain of first acquaintance, the early resentment against the gospel for spoiling plans and pleasures, giving way, and changing into lifelong fidelity. (R. Glover.)

So he got linked forever to the Lord! (J. Morison, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 21. A Cyrenian] One of Cyrene, a celebrated city in the Pentapolis of Libya.

The father of Alexander and Rufus] It appears that these two persons were well known among the first disciples of our Lord. It is not unlikely that this is the same Alexander who is mentioned, Ac 19:33, and that the other is the Rufus spoken of by St. Paul, Ro 16:13.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

To make this history complete, all the other evangelists must be consulted, and compared with Mark, who omits many considerable passages recorded by them; we have done it in our notes on Mat 27:32-50, See Poole on “Mat 27:32“, and following verses to Mat 27:50, to which I refer the reader, both for the understanding the several passages of this relation, and reconciling any small differences between the relations of the several evangelists. It is the observation of some, that when in Scripture the father is made known by the son, or sons, it signifieth some more eminency in the sons than in the father. Many think that this Simon was a pagan: though it be not certain, yet it is not improbable, that this Alexander was the same who is mentioned Act 19:33, persecuted there by the Jews; and Rufus, he whom Paul saluteth, Rom 16:13, calling him chosen in the Lord. They say they were both at Rome, where they judge St. Mark was when he wrote this history, and that Mark mentions them as those who could attest the truth of this part of the history. The father bare Christs cross, (or one end of it), there is all we read of him. The sons believe on him who died upon it. So free is Divine grace, fixing where it pleaseth. Concerning the wine mingled with myrrh, we spake in our notes on Mat 27:32-50. Some think our Saviours friends gave it him to refresh him; but it is most probable it was given him to intoxicate him, that he might be less sensible of the pain he should endure upon the cross: whatsoever they intended, our Saviour refused it, having wine to uphold him which they knew not of. For other things relating to this story, see the notes on Mat 27:32-50.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian,….

[See comments on Mt 27:32];

who passed by; as they were leading Jesus to be crucified:

coming out of the country; from some country village hard by, according to the Syriac, and Vulgate Latin versions; or out of the field, as the Persic and Ethiopic: he might have been in the field, about some rural business; or, as Dr. Lightfoot conjectures, to fetch wood from thence, which was lawful to be done on a feast day, with some provisos, according to the Jewish canon, which runs thus t;

“they may bring wood out of the field, (i.e. on a feast day, as this was,) of that which is gathered together, and out of a place that is fenced about, and even of that which is scattered abroad: what is a fenced place? whatever is near to a city, the words of R. Judah. R. Jose says, whatever they go into by a door, and even within the border of the sabbath.”

And according to the commentators u, it must be wood that is gathered together, and that lies not in an open field, but in a fenced place, and this near the city; at least with in two thousand cubits, a sabbath day’s journey.

The father of Alexander and Rufus; who were men well known when Mark wrote his Gospel, and very likely men of eminence among Christians: mention is made of Alexander in Ac 19:33 and of Rufus, in

Ro 16:13, which some have thought the same as here; but whether they are or not, is not certain: however, they obliged “Simon”

to bear his cross: the cross of Christ, after him;

[See comments on Mt 27:32].

t Misn. Betza, c. 4. sect. 2. u Maimon. & Bartenora in ib. Vid. Maimon. Hilch. Yom Tob, c. 2. sect. 14.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

They compel (). Dramatic present indicative again where Mt 27:32 has the aorist. For this Persian word see on Matt 5:41; Matt 27:32.

Coming out of the country ( ‘ ). Hence Simon met the procession. Mark adds that he was “the father of Alexander and Rufus.” Paul mentions a Rufus in Ro 16:13, but it was a common name and proves nothing. See on Mt 27:32 for discussion of cross-bearing by criminals. Luke adds “after Jesus” ( ). But Jesus bore his own cross till he was relieved of it, and he walked in front of his own cross for the rest of the way.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Compel. Better impress, as Rev. in margin. See on Mt 5:41. Note the accuracy in designating Simon.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian,” (kai anggareuousin tina Simona Kurenaion) “And they impress or impel a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian,” of the continent of Africa, thought to be a black man, Mat 27:32.

2) “Who passed by, coming out of the country,” (paragonta erchomenon ap agrou) ”Who coming away from the country, was passing by,” along the street area now called Via Dolorosa (the way of the cross).

3) “The father of Alexander and Rufus,” (ton patera Aleksandrou kai Hrouphou) “The father of Alexander and of Rufus,” It is believed that this is the same Rufus and his mother mentioned Rom 16:13, who was “chosen in the Lord.”

4) “To bear His cross.” (hina are ton stauron autou) “In order that he might bear the cross of Him, (of Jesus),” who now was physically weakened, nigh exhausted, Luk 23:26.

It appears that Jesus had become so weakened physically through the all night ordeal of His trial, His being humiliated, slapped, bruised with a reed, whipped with the cat-o-nine-tails, and crowned with thorns till blood ran down His face, that He had become almost too weak to walk, could not bear His cross all the way to Calvary, though He “went forth” at first “bearing His cross,” Joh 19:17.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Mar. 15:21. Compel.Press into service: original word is of Persian origin, and denotes the impressment into service which officials were authorised to make to expedite the mails.

Mar. 15:26. The fact that the inscription was written in three languages is quite enough to account for the slight variations in wording.

Mar. 15:27. Thieves.Robbers, or bandits.

Mar. 15:28. Wanting in many of the best MSS., but found in all the most ancient versions; therefore probably genuine.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mar. 15:21-41

(PARALLELS: Mat. 27:32-56; Luk. 23:26-49; Joh. 19:17-37.)

Lessons from Calvary.

I. Let us be willing to bear the cross for Him who bore the cross for us (Mar. 15:21).They compel Simon to bear His cross. It was a reproach, and none would do it but by compulsion. We must not think it strange if crosses come upon us suddenly, and we be surprised by them. The cross represents the sufferings which we are called upon to bear as Christians. Cross-bearing and self-forgetfulness fitly go together (as in Mat. 16:24); for he that will not deny himself the pleasures of sin and the advantages of the world for Christ, when it comes to the push will never have the heart to take up his cross. In running the race set before us there is often a cross in the waysomething which is not only not joyous, but even grievous. This is no mournful aspect of discipleship; for if we are willing to bear the cross for Christ, we shall be thereby brought into closer fellowship with Christ.

II. The place of death to Him is the beginning of life to us (Mar. 15:22).Once a Golgotha, Calvary has ceased to be a place of skulls. Where men went once to die they go now to live. There was opened the fountain for sin and uncleannessfor your sins and mine, for the sins of the whole world. Have you been to the place called Calvary?

III. The manner of death He endured for us shews with what manner of love He loved us (Mar. 15:24).Crucifixion was regarded as the appropriate punishment for the most infamous characters. The cross being placed in position, the victim was within reach of every hand that might choose to strike a blow, and near enough also to note every gesture of insult, and to hear every mocking word levelled at him. Yet for us, for our salvation, Christ was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. The rocks rent asunder when Jesus died; and surely our hearts must be harder than granite if the story of the Cross fail to touch them. Christ died for the ungodly, and He will not see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied until every heart is renewed, as it has been redeemed.

IV. The cruel challenge (Mar. 15:29-32).Could our Lords enemies but have grasped the truth comprehended in their sarcastic taunt, tears of gratitude would have dimmed their eyes as they learned that Christ had voluntarily laid by the power He possessed to save Himself, that by His death the way might be opened for fallen man to return to God. In wilful and therefore criminal ignorance the terrible act of crucifixion was sanctioned and carried out. It is possible for men to be fulfilling Scripture prophecies even when they are breaking Scripture precepts.

V. The two signslight at birth, and darkness at death (Mar. 15:33). At the Saviours birth heavens host rejoiced and the dazzling lustre of the glory of the Lord was manifest. At the Saviours death the prophecy was fulfilled, I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day. So awestruck were the people that one heathen writer said concerning it, There was a general belief that either the God of nature was suffering, or the machine of the world was tumbling to ruin

VI. The cry of a Saviours agony (Mar. 15:34).It is as though He had said, I could have borne all elsethe being despised and rejected of men; I could have endured the outward pain, the bodily anguish; but oh! My Father, Thy smile has been My light, Thy presence and fellowship My joy. Why hast Thou forsaken Me? We have here the summit of human blissMy God! My God! We have here the lowest depth of human woethe being God-forsaken.

VII. Triumph in death (Mar. 15:37).He commended His soul to God and expired. He triumphed in death at Calvary. So may we.

VIII. The signification of the rent veil (Mar. 15:38).The kingdom of heaven is open to all believers. We may now draw near in full assurance of faith; for we may boldly enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the veilthat is to say, His flesh.S. Oliver.

Mar. 15:25. The Son of God nailed to the Cross.Upon the crucifixion of a good man Xenophon or Livy would have lavished all the stores of descriptive language, loaded the memory of the murderers with every indignant epithet, and honoured the virtue and heroism of the sufferer with the highest applause. Mark despatches his history of the crucifixion of the Son of God in one word, saying, with apparent coolness and bold simplicity, And they crucified Him. Taught to record the deed and suppress the reflexion, he hath, however, given the world all that faith desires for a foundation, a fact under the hand and seal of the Spirit of truth.

I. The crucifiers.

1. Israelites and Gentiles, the two great divisions of men at that time, took part in it; the agency of both was criminal, though not equally criminal. He that delivered Me to thee, said our Lord to the Roman governor, hath the greater sin. The agency of Judas and Caiaphas was more criminal than the agency of Herod and Pontius Pilate, and the Gentiles were less blamable than the people of Israel. By the hands of wicked men Christ was crucified and slain, but their wicked hands did that which the righteous counsel of God determined before to be done. The determination of His counsel was just and holy; the deed of the ungodly assembly who executed it was wicked and unjust.
2. The crucifiers knew not what they did. Ignorance, though neither the justification nor the excuse of wickedness, is an alleviation pleadable in applications to the throne for pardon.

II. The Crucified.

1. The Man Christ Jesus is Son and Servant and Elect of God (Psa. 2:7; Isa. 13:1),Son, the Brightness of glory, the express Image, and in every perfection the Equal of the Father, by whom He is begotten; Servant, righteous Servant, who, doing the work which pleased the Father, glorified Him on earth, finishing it by bowing His head and giving up the Ghost; Elect of God, and precious Chosen of Him from eternity, and foreordained to obedience and suffering before the corner-stones of creation were fastened.

2. The Man Christ Jesus is the Seed of the woman, and the Seed of Abraham, the Root and Offspring of David, and the Son of Mary (Gen. 3:15; Gen. 22:18; Rev. 22:16; Luk. 1:32; Act. 2:30). These titles, which break forth along the line of His ancestry according to the flesh, are proofs that He is the Saviour promised to the world and invitations to believe and praise the love of God, who in the fulness of time sent forth His Son, etc.

3. The Man Christ Jesus is the Mediator, the Surety, and the Messenger of the covenant. In the covenant, of which Christ Jesus is mediator, there is an old and a new testament. The efficacy of His mediation, running along the Old Testament, breaks forth with greater lustre and vigour under the New; and by means of His death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first testament, they who are called under both, whether Israelites or Gentiles, receive the promise of eternal inheritance. The Mediator of the covenant is the Surety of it. The vigour of His suretyship, together with its precious effects, extends itself to both testaments of the covenant; but under the new its beauty is more conspicuous and its effects more extensive. The Mediator and Surety is the Messenger of the covenant. The glad tidings of a new and everlasting covenant He published to the world in paradise, proclaimed by His holy prophets, sealed and ratified with His own blood upon the Cross, and by the mouth of His apostles, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, made them known to all nations for the obedience of faith.
4. The Man Christ Jesus is the Priest, the Prophet, and the King whom God hath raised up and anointed. Salvation, effected by His death as a priest and revealed in His Word as a prophet, is completed under His administration as a king. While on earth He executed the offices in His humiliation; and after rising and ascending into heaven, He executes them in His exaltation. Their glory is not an occasional and transient blaze, but a sunshine, which shall continue for ever, and fill the heaven of heavens with brightness of glory through eternity.

III. The crucifying.Christ Jesus is the Man by Himself. Among the sons of the mighty none is equal to Him, none is like Him, and there is none besides Him. The crucifying is a deed of which, in all its circumstances, there is no example in the history of punishment.

1. The crucifying of the Man Christ Jesus is exhibited to the world as a deed which executed the counsel of God (Act. 2:23).

2. The crucifying of the Man Christ Jesus is exhibited to the world as a deed that fulfilled many prophecies of Scripture (Gen. 3:15; Psa. 22:16; Isaiah 53.; Zec. 12:10; Dan. 9:26).

3. The crucifying of the Man Christ Jesus is exhibited to the world as the infliction of a penalty. The crucifiers beheld it as the punishment which their laws inflicted upon blasphemers of God and the king; but He had done violence to none, neither was any deceit in His mouth. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him, to put Him to the grief of dying on the Cross, and to make His soul an offering for sin. In the judgment of God, which is according to truth, the crucifying of the Lord of Glory, in our nature and stead, is the punishment that transgressors of the law under which He was made deserved.
4. The crucifying of the Man Christ Jesus is exhibited to the world as the operation of a curse. The curse is the sentence which the Lawgiver denounced upon the transgressor of His law.
5. The crucifying of the Man Christ Jesus is exhibited to the world as the expedient of reconciliation for iniquity. In this expedient the wisdom and love of God break forth to the world, and meeting together with His holiness, mercy, truth, and righteousness, glorify themselves in the highest.

IV. Wonders in the Crucifixion.Here God and man, sin and holiness, love and hatred, weakness and strength, honour and dishonour, death and victory, the blessing and the curse, meet together, and exert themselves wondrously, forming coalitions of conflicting causes, and producing effects apparently discordant, yet perfectly harmonious.A. Shanks.

The call of the Cross.The Cross is the symbol of the eternal love of God, and it is the symbol of the perfect life of man. The call of the Cross is like the call of other facts of nature and of the universe. It is like the call of the sunshine and the rain, and no more mysterious. The sunshine and the rain call the farmer to sow the seed to co-operate with nature, to link his little life with the great life of God. The one is no more mysterious than the other. The farmer labours in a narrow sphere; the Christian labours in all the spheres. The Cross shews to us the true life of manthe Christ-life.

I. The Cross calls all men to personal holiness.The end of salvation is that men may have the very life of God. There are two elements in this idea of holiness. The sacrifices when they were brought to be offered, if they were acceptable sacrifices, must be of animals in perfect health, perfect physical health and purity. And so the primary idea of holiness is that of healthfulness or of purity. We speak of the sacrifice of Christ, the stainless purity of Christ: to be fit to be offered to God as He wasto that all men are called. But then there is another idea in connexion with these sacrifices. The first idea was the idea of health and purity; the second idea is of something which is set apart to the service of God. Now we are to understand that goodness does not imply weakness. Goodness implies the finest strength and the finest beauty and the most finished culture, all set apart to God. There has been an idea in other ages that what we call the heroic virtuesbravery, couragethat these were the things which require strength. But love requires more strength than all the heroic virtues combined. It was a braver thing for Ignatius Loyola, when that rabble of Chinese turned upon him and a rude ruffian rushed up and spat in his face, quietly to look down and smile upon him and commend him to the love of God, than for Marshal Ney at Waterloo to lead the Old Guard. The one had all the enthusiasm and passion of a great occasion; the other saw ten thousand men against him and only God above. A man once said: If I were an artist, I should like to paint my ideal of God; I should paint Him, not as some have painted Him, as a feeble old man with snowy hair; I should paint Him, not as others have painted Him, seated upon a lofty throne, with thousands bowing before Him; I should paint my ideal of God as a great cloud, and out of the cloud an outstretched hand, and in our weakness and guilt, in our consciousness of our utter impotence to be that to which we are called, I would see that hand reaching from beyond the stars.

II. The Cross calls all to fill their lives with service and sacrifice for humanity.Christs ideal is to become our life. Not only are we to become like Him, not only are we to think His thoughts, but we are to do as He did. I sometimes wonder how it is that people have so mistaken emphasis, and have spent so much time in seeking to adjust the death of Christ to a philosophical system, when all the while there is the example of One who went about doing good, who bound up the broken-hearted, who was seeking opportunities to be helpful to those who are in suffering. It is only one thing that can make a cross, and that is love; and love must go into that shape, because love means sacrifice. Love always hangs on the cross. The more we love, the more we must suffer. The more our hearts are tied to our dear ones, the more awfully will they be broken if those dear ones do not realise the life to which they are called.

III. We are called by that Cross of Christ to believe in the triumph of the truth and righteousness.That shews us, as nothing else does, what has been spentthat poverty, that sorrow, that sin, can be destroyed. And in our hours of darkness, when we feel as if everything were going awry, when it seems to us as if there were no God at the heart of things, when we look up into the great wide sky inquiring wherefore we were born, for earnest or for jestin those moments, when it seems as if nothing but a heartless and cruel fate were at the heart of things, the voice from the cross, serene as the music of the angel-choirs, rings out its inquiry, Can you believe that a work which was baptised with the blood of the Son of God, and which Jesus died to start, can ever be defeated?A. H. Bradford, D.D.

Mar. 15:26. The title on the Cross.That white board has long since perishedit has crumbled to dust; and yet there is a glorious sense in which the inscription can never be obliterated. Fire cannot burn it out; waters cannot wash it away; spears cannot erase the wondrous words; and to-day, in living letters of glorious light, it stands out for as and for every living creature to read that Jesusthis Jesus of Nazarethis KingKing of the Jews and King of the world.

I. What this inscription meant to Pilate.It was Pilates revenge on the priests; it was a studied insult to them. It was one of those sarcastic sallies in which the Romans delighted. Pilate must have fallen very low to make scoff and sport at such a time. There is no knowing where a man may be led when he once gives way to revenge. Nothing is sacred then; he will trample under-foot foot the most solemn thing; he will disregard the most solemn moment. For ever the character of Pilate stands out as the character of a man who knew the right, but did it notwho was convinced of the true path, but deliberately turned round and walked in the false;

II. What the priests could have seen in that inscriptionTo them it was one of the most startling and searching sentences upon which their eyes had ever looked, and we can see from the wondrous story how vexed, how bitter, they were when they found out the trick that Pilate had played upon them. Why, there was the very thing they least lovedthat proclamation of the Kingship of this Man dying on the Cross. They could not reconcile His lowly origin and His ignominious death with His Divine claims and glorious title. And that is the difficulty with many even now. The real distinctive character of Christianity is that it is independent of all outward and material conditions of greatness.

III. What could have been the special relation to Jesus, as He hung upon the Cross, of that inscription above His head?It was written in jestbut there was a tremendous meaning in those words! There, above the Cross, is inscribed His sweetest name. Jesus! Mystic, blessed, soul-healing name! Jehovah! Emmanuel! Shepherd! Unspeakable Gift! Saviour! Name of sweetness! Name of power! Name for the guilty! Name for the lost! Name for all nations! Note also that on the Cross is a mark of the wondrous condescension of Jesus, for there is Nazareth, Jesus of Nazareth, despised Nazareth. Ay, and there I see also His rightful dignity, King. But where is His throne, and where His sceptre and His crown? Ah! dont you see them? That wooden Cross is His throne; the nails in His hands are His sceptre; those twisted thorns form His crown. He conquered when He fell; He reigned when He died; and never king was more kingly than Jesus on the Cross. But I see also a hint of His future glory. King of the Jews. He is coming again; and when He cometh to make up His jewels, as the children sing, among the brightest of His crown shall be some of the children of Abraham, bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh; and though now they are cast out and scattered, though they are a nation and yet no nation, though indeed they have no human king and no human governor, when He comes, He who scattered Israel shall gather them, and reign over the people who once pierced Him.

IV. What is it to us?What is it to me? Some one has said that that inscription on the Cross was the first printed sermon. It was printed in three languagesin Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Hebrew was the language of religion, Greek the language of culture, Latin the language of power. Was it not prophetic? Has it not its messages for to-day? Yes. What is the message of the Cross for men of culture? It is this: that Jesus must be their King, Jesus must be owned as Master of the mind and Lord of every gift and talent. Oh that to-day intellect, genius, science, art, literature, and all culture might own the kingship of Christ! And what shall we say of the Latinthe emblem of power and empire? Christ must be KingKing over men of influence, men of power, statesmen, rulers, magistrates, judges. King in the senate-house, King on the bench, King in our courts of law, King in all our local assemblies. Dare we forget it? Woe be to our dear land if we do! And what of religion? Oh, if He is not King here, religion will be the deadest, dullest, dreariest, most abominable thing of all! Oh that we who profess to be men and women religious in heart and life may truly own the kingship of Christ! Now I want us all to recognise in these three languages emblems of the three parts of our own lives; and I want us to say to Jesus Christ, Oh, Christ of the Cross, Saviour of men! come and rule in my life, not in one part of it, but in all parts of itcome and make me all Thine own.W. J. Mayers.

Jesus our King. Behold your king! exclaimed Pilate to the Jews, as they crowded round his tribunal to witness the condemnation of Jesus. The words may have been spoken in sarcasm; but we would hope they were rather intended as a last appeal to the compassion of the populace. Some have even thought that they embodied the secret impression of Pilates own mind. Certain it is that he was alarmed by the peculiarity of Christs appearance and manner; and possibly enough he entertained a fear lest He should have a real claim to the title thus assigned Him. But, with whatever motive he uttered the wordswhether in derision or in seriousness, in contempt or in faithhis tongue was the instrument of Providence in declaring a great and stupendous truth; and that truth he afterwards recorded, in the three great languages of the ancient worldthe languages of culture, of empire, and of religionupon the Cross of Christ.

I. The kingly relation in which Jesus stands to us is far more definite and intelligible than it was to the Jews.

1. Though He was indeed their king by the strongest claimsannounced to them as such by prophecy, expected by them in that character for ages, and manifested to them by demonstrations of miraculous poweryet it must be confessed that there was much difficulty and much obscurity hovering about His pretensions, when He stood before the tribunal of Pilate or hung upon the tree of Calvary. It must have been a hard matter even for the eye of faith to discover in that apparently helpless and destitute Object any appearance of regal dignity. He seemed abandoned alike by heaven and earthOne whose condition was that of utter hopelessness, whose ruin was inevitable, and who was only rescued from absolute contempt by the placid dignity of His manner. Accordingly we find that even those who had seen His arm uplifted in the majesty of omnipotence, and heard His voice when it hushed the tumult of the waves or called the dead back to earth, made shipwreck of their faith in this hour of trial. Although therefore a keen observer of mankind might, as Pilate did, perceive in the conduct of Jesus symptoms of an extraordinary and wondrous character, how were the multitude to discriminate or to recognise a King in One condemned to crucifixion as a criminal? But we are under no such difficulty. To us Jesus appears not as a culprit, but as the Conqueror of death and the Lord of life. Why, then, should we hesitate to acknowledge Him as our King?

2. The Jews were differently situated from us with respect to Christ, as they had received no positive, public, and official assurance from Him of His being their king. It did not enter into His design to announce Himself formally to them in that capacity. He was, in fact, their spiritual, not temporal sovereign; but as long as He was present amongst them in person He could never have made them comprehend the distinction. He therefore left it to His apostles to explain fully the nature of His kingdom, its extent, and the qualifications requisite for membership in it. Now the explanation which the apostles gave in consequence of that commission we are in full possession of. We find in the New Testament an account of a spiritual kingdom, whose Invisible Head is Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
3. The Jews had received no such benefits as they expected from Christ as their King. He had, it is true, proved a great and signal benefactor to them in many respects; but the blessings of His kingdom were not dispensed so long as He remained on earth in the flesh. The Holy Spirit, who was to be the agent in dispensing the blessings and extending the bounds of that kingdom, did not openly commence His work till Christs bodily presence was withdrawn. We, on the other hand, have from infancy shared all the present privileges and advantages of Christs kingdom, and have been cheered with the hope of those which are hereafter to be revealed. We therefore are utterly without excuse if we do not acknowledge and reverence Him as our King. In His hands the Father has been pleased to place the absolute control of all our destinies. He is our Ruler, our Protector, our Example, and our Judge.

II. The feelings with which we should regard Jesus as our King.

1. With reverence. The very thought of Him should stifle every lofty imagination and hush every unguarded word. We bend ourselves, with a feeling of awe, before an earthly monarch: should we not, then, present ourselves in a constant attitude of humility before the Supreme Sovereign of creation? Let this thought operate upon the minds of those who are in the habit of speaking lightly of the gospel, and using the name of Christ more familiarly than they would that of a common acquaintance. This practice, though originating often in thoughtlessness, is an offence of a very serious cast, which blunts the delicate edge of spiritual susceptibility.
2. With love. An earthly sovereign, by a few acts of munificence, or even by a few generous expressions, finds an easy passage to the hearts of his people. But has Christ conferred no more than one or two benefits upon us? Has He uttered only a few expressions of kindness? Surely, if ever sovereign deserved the love of His subjects, it must be He who, after having said and done everything that could encourage and console, laid down His life for them! What an inversion is it, not merely of right reasoning, but of proper and honourable feeling, when we loudly extol those whose ambition has led thousands to death, as sheep to the slaughter, but dare to depreciate that Divine Mercy which could offer up itself a sacrifice for the ungodly!

III. Where especially shall we offer our homage to Christ as King?He is not to be seen, as formerly, walking amongst men, in the humble state of a companion, or the still more lowly form of a servant. Nor is He at present to be seen by us in the magnificence of celestial splendour. The time indeed will come when the eye that now looks to Him in faith shall actually behold Him in all the brightness of His glory. But the mists of earth cannot yet be penetrated, and we must be satisfied with a distant and mental contemplation of our King. Yet is He not far from any one of us; and occasions there are when we may know that He is specially among us, to receive our worship and our praise.

1. He marks the looks, the gestures, nay, the inmost thoughts, of those who present themselves in the courts of His house. And there also those who are thus seen by Him may with the eye spiritual behold Him in returnmay see Him smiling benignly, may hear Him whispering peace, and may feel Him in their souls blessing their efforts and strengthening their resolutions.
2. We may behold and worship Him in the retirement of private devotion. When, bowed down under the sense of sin, or in affliction or sickness, we raise our hearts to heaven, we may see Him bending from His throne. of love to hear our prayer and recommend it by His advocacy to His Father.
3. But surely our homage is more particularly due to Him when we kneel before Him at that altar which He Himself consecrated as the peculiar scene of His intercourse with His people. There He meets us by special appointment. There He pours forth in fullest measure the riches of His grace. There, then, let us not fail to present ourselves continually before Him, and offer Him our most heartfelt praise and thanksgiving, and plead before the Eternal Father the Great Sacrifice of Calvary.

Mar. 15:34. Our Lords desertion by the Father.This complaint is borrowed from the twenty-second Psalm, which begins with these words. And if it be asked why our Saviour chose to express Himself on this occasion in the language of David, two probable reasons may be given for this.

1. That the Jews might call to mind the great resemblance between His case and that of this illustrious king and prophet. In both cases innocence and virtue were borne down by violence and eclipsed under a cloud of sufferings, while the wicked triumphed and the vilest of men were exalted.
2. The other reason of Christs taking the words of this psalm might be that this psalm was allowed to belong to the Messiah, and to have its ultimate completion in Him. To signify that He was the person foretold in this psalm our dying Lord makes the complaint His own, and this after His crucifiers had as it were challenged Him to make good His titles to this character.

I. Consider the style which our dying Lord uses in addressing Himself to God.My God, My God.

1. These words can signify no less than a consciousness of His integrity at the time of our Saviours using them. At that very time His heart was so far from reproaching Him as to applaud every action of His life and fill Him with great peace and assurance.
2. Christ might well say, My God, My God, because He had chosen and avouched Him for such, and loved and delighted in Him with a flame of devotion which angels themselves cannot equal.
3. These words imply the filial confidence and trust which Christ reposed in His Father at the very time that He complained so tenderly of His having forsaken Him.

II. In what sense was Christ forsaken by God in His passion?

1. Are we to believe that God was angry with His well-beloved Son? Was His heart turned against Him, and His love towards Him for some time interrupted? Did the wrath of God fall upon this sacrifice like fire from heaven, and as. it were consume it, as He saith of His own zeal? These things I call impossible. For how in the nature of things could they possibly be? How could the same Person at the same time be both innocent and guilty, the object of the love of God and of His wrath? Or how could the righteous Judge of the world, who is infinite in knowledge, reckon things and persons to be what they really were not?
2. But if God was not angry with His Son, might not the Son apprehend that He was, or at least doubt of the continuance of His Fathers love to Him, the fear of which filled Him with this amazing anguish? No. The Scripture saith it is impossible for God to lie. But what had such a delusion as this been better?to make His Son believe things for which there was no manner of foundation? And as for His being in such an error if left to Himself, it is also impossible. His conscience could not accuse Him of what He never committed; and He had too worthy and honourable thoughts of the Deity to apprehend His displeasure, while His own heart did not condemn Him.
3. The true meaning of this complaint.
(1) Why hast Thou forsaken Me? i.e. Why dost Thou leave Me destitute of Thy heavenly aid in this dreadful conflict? In My agony when I prayed so fervently that the cup might pass from Me there appeared an angel from heaven strengthening Me; but now Thou neither helpest Me immediately nor by Thy holy angels: I am left to wrestle single against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. And was He not a match for them in His own strength?able alone to stand against their whole force, and to support the load of sufferings which was laid upon Him, without the assistance of ministering angels? Doubtless He was, and for that reason was left to Himself upon the Cross.

(2) Why hast Thou forsaken Me? i.e. Why hast Thou taken from Me the joys and consolations of Thy presence. If I had these, as I have formerly enjoyed them, no sorrows and pains that I could feel would make any great impression upon Me. But, oh! the scene is changed, and that darkness which now covers the earth is but an emblem of that thicker night which has involved My soul!

(3) Why hast Thou forsaken Me? i.e. Why am I left so long in this suffering condition, exposed to the insults of wicked men and the rage of infernal spirits, a spectacle of shame and horror to the world? Why dost Thou delay so long to take My soul? Oh, come, My Father, and at length release My wearied spirit!

(4) How is the condition of our Redeemer changed since the time He made this bitter complaint! As the sun, after its eclipse, broke out with double lustre upon the world, so did the light of His Fathers countenance upon His soul; shame and sorrow and suffering were succeeded by glory, rest, and felicityand victory with triumph.

III. Inquire into the reasons of Gods thus forsaking His beloved Son.As the Scripture does not give us any particular reasons of this, distinct from those of His sufferings in general, we have no other rule to go by but the end or design of His sufferings, which relates either to His example, or His sacrifice, or His priesthood, or His victory over the enemies. of His Church. 1. If the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ was pleased to forsake His well-beloved Son in His dying passion, it was in order to add the greater perfection to His example (1Pe. 2:2; Heb. 5:7-9). To carry His example to the greatest height, He not only suffered from men, but from Godpain and shame and death from men, desertion from God: in all teaching us how to behave with humble, filial resignation to the One, and charity and meekness to the other.

2. Another design of the Father in this temporary desertion of His dying Son might be to increase the perfection of His atonement (1Pe. 2:24; Heb. 9:26; Heb. 10:14; Eph. 1:7). He not only sheds His blood, in which the life of the body consists, but He sheds it with all the circumstances necessary to complete the expiation: His soul had its share of suffering; and though, being pure and innocent, He could know nothing of the gnawings of a guilty conscience, that worm which never dies, nor suffer under the wrath and displeasure of a Holy God, who, loving righteousness, could not for a moment hate that Person who of all beings represented Him most exactly in this respect, yet He bore all that an innocent being could well be liable to, and for so long a time as the Divine Wisdom judged meet.

3. This circumstance of our Saviours sufferings, His being forsaken of God, contributes to the perfection of His priesthood. He suffered by inward sorrow and desertion, as by outward and bodily pain, and is therefore able to succour them that are in the same condition, so as to be also willing and inclined to do it.
4. This completes His victory over the grand adversary of God and man, and renders His triumph the more glorious. Satan shall see that he has another kind of person to deal with than he had in the first AdamOne who, left to Himself, is not only able to cope with him, but easily to baffle all his temptations and stratagems, and with an invincible courage to repel all his assaults.

Concluding reflexions.

1. How should this endear the Redeemer of the world to us, who was willing to suffer such things for our sakesshame and pain and death; to be persecuted by men, assaulted by Satan, and forsaken of God!
2. This part of the history of our Saviours last passion carries in it a great deal of instruction and consolation to His faithful disciples when they are in like circumstances with Him.H. Grove.

Mar. 15:38 The rent veil.This seems a trifling incident to record in such a solemn place. That an ancient curtain, worn out in the lapse of years, should be tornwhat is there in that to excite surprise or be thought worthy of notice, especially at such a time?

I. The whole worship and ritual of the Jews was like a volume of pictures, by which they were taught spiritual truths.

1. The veil told them that there was a barrier between them and Godsin. They felt as they gazed upon it somewhat of the same awe that falls upon us as we stand outside the chamber of death, and know that a few feet away there is a visitor stronger than any human power, unseen, but terribly real.
2. There is nothing to hinder us from coming face to face with God in worshipno outward symbol that sets a barrier to us, past which we dare not go. But though the veil has been taken away, that still remains of which the veil was but the picture. Our sin hangs as a thick curtain between us and the purity of God.
3. Have we ever felt that this veil is there, over our heartsno delusion, but an awful fact? It is indeed the most fundamental of all truthsthat which we must start with. Here a beginning is made with us by God. He speaks to sinners, and to sinners alone. We cannot feel the full joy of salvation if we have not first felt the sorrow, the desolation, of the separation that sin has made between us and God.
4. The depths and the heights of Christian experience lie close together. There is no better place to seek God, no surer place to find Him, than in some valley of humiliation. The veil of the templelet us take our stand before it, along with the great company of those who in all ages have mourned over their sin.

II. The death of Christ can take the barrier of sin away.

1. It is broken; the veil is rent; there is a way for us to God, a living way, for whomsoever will tread it. This is the gospel of Christ. It is a gospel that wounds before it heals, humbles before it exalts, strikes us down with a conviction of sin before it lifts us up with the assurance of forgiveness.
2. It is glad tidings to know that Christ has opened this way. But what good will it do to know it if we do not tread it? It will not do for us just to say, Yes, Christ is the Saviour of sinners. We must each one by one take a journey to the Cross alone, and meet Christ there. In the darkness we stretch out the feeble hands of faith, and pray that the veil may be withdrawn, the shadow lifted from off our souls. And lo! even as we pray our scarlet sins become white as snow, the veil is rent, and we are at peace with God.

III. The rent veil signifies also that death is conquered.To the Jews death was at the best a sore discouragement, an unsolved problem. God was on the other side of the veilthey knew that; but whether He dwelt there alone or in company with the living saints of bygone days they could not be quite sure. So the whole of life was to them but a walking in the valley of the shadow of death, at the farther end of which sat that giant formdim, dark, repulsivefilling up the whole space, and projecting his gloomy shadow along the whole path they travelled. But Christ has changed all this. He has rent for us the veil that is over our eyes, has brought to light the life and immortality that is beyond death, and has shewn to us on the other side not an empty heaven where God sits alone, but a heaven peopled with all who have loved and served Him here.R. T. Cunningham.

Mar. 15:39. The confession of the centurion.Many of us no doubt have witnessed a deaththe death, probably, of some one near and dear to us. It was one of those events, necessarily rare in life, that in a few moments impress a stamp upon us which a lifetime cannot efface. We are not dead metal, but living souls. Such moments are full of awe,not merely because of this more immediate contact with things unseen, but because of the increased responsibility; for we have one more great crisis to answer for, one more opportunity of making a fresh start on the flood-tide of feeling, which a crisis of this kind almost necessarily involves. And yet, after all, how small the event was which effected all this! The death of just one out of the myriads of the human race. How few there were that even for a short time missed him! How very narrow was the circle of affairs that was in any degree affected by his loss! But in spite of the evident want of change in the world around us, we cannot for a moment doubt the reality of the change which has come over ourselves.

I. Once, and once only, in the history of the world all surrounding circumstances did change, in order to be more in harmony with a scene of death.Once, and once only, nature has swerved from its iron course for the sake of a dying man, and shewn clear signs of distress and suffering, in order to be in sympathy with a soul in agony. And well might it do so; for the agonised soul was the soul of its Maker and its Master. When the human soul of Christ took its willing flight to the hands of its Heavenly Father, the sun hid its face, the earth did quake, and the rocks rentthe very graves set free their dead. It was sights and sounds such as these which told upon the centurion and his companions, and wrung from them that marvellous confession, Truly this was the Son of God.

II. In all that multitude they were the very group from whom one might least have expected it.Such an exclamation would have come naturally from the lips of the disciples. It would not have surprised us had it been uttered by the crowda mob which had been raised to such enthusiasm for Him on Palm Sunday by the report of the raising of Lazarus, and to such frenzy against Him by the machinations of the priests, might easily have been won back (we think) by portents like these. Nay, it would not wholly have astounded us if it had proceeded from the priests themselves. The darkness, and the earthquake, and the rending of the veil might have forced home the truth even on them. But no; the priests are already preparing to take further measures against that deceiver. The most that any of the people do is to smite their breasts and return. And as for the disciples, the very things that should have turned their hopes into certainties robbed them of hope altogether. On Easter morning the news of His resurrection seemed to them as idle tales. No; the only persons able to interpret these awful signs aright are despised Gentiles; and among these not people of thought and culture, but Roman soldiers. Nor was it the execution which touched them. The cruel punishments of Rome had made them familiar enough with scourging and crucifixion. But they had had other experiences to-day. They may have been part of the band who found themselves prostrate on the ground at the mere word of their Prisoner. They may have heard, one of them may have carried, the message from Pilates wife. They had heard the cry of the Jews, which made Pilate the more afraid, and of which their own exclamation seems to be an echo: By our law He ought to die, because He made Himself Son of God. And no doubt they had been on duty during the three hours of darkness, at the close of which came the earthquake. They had heard also the last great cry with which that Life which redeemed the world was yielded up. And St. Mark tells us that it was this cry, even more than the surrounding wonders, that called forth the confession of the centurion.

III. And why?Possibly because such proof of unsubdued power, after the long hours of agony and exhaustion, seemed nothing short of miraculous. But still more perhaps because His dying immediately after such proof of power shewed that, after all that the malice of His enemies had inflicted on Him, His death was voluntary. He surrendered His life. There is yet one more fact which may well have contributed to produce this startling conviction in the mind of the centurion and his companions: the dying words of Christ. Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit. They had heard that He claimed to be Son of Goda title quite unknown to them among their own divinities and heroes. What did it mean? Son of Jupiter, Son of Venus, Offspring of the gods, they could have understood. But Son of God? Death stared Him in the face; and to speak falsely in the hour of death is scarcely human; and yet with His dying words He had commended His spirit into the hands of that Almighty Father whose Son from His childhood upwards He had claimed to be. It was this then that drove the truth home to the Roman soldiers. Certainly, they said, this was a righteous man. Certainly this man was no deceiver. Truly this was the Son of God.

IV. The assent of more than eighteen centuries has ratified their verdict.And it will hold good till He Himself makes good the promise made to Caiaphas: Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Lessons.

1. Christs willing surrender of His life may teach us that in the spiritual world there is only one road to successthe surrender of self. He who hallowed birth by being born, and conquered death by dying, conquered the stubborn wills of men by surrendering His own. And there is no other way for us. This is not a lesson to be buried in a napkin until some great affliction calls it into use. It is a lesson for every day and every hour. There is no annoyance too trifling for the exercise of it. If in the petty vexations of which we have a dozen a day we learn to submit with cheerfulness for the sake of Christs Cross, we shall be ready even to give thanks to Him for His chastisement, when He sees fit to bruise us more severely. Thus all our lives long we may share the mind of our dying Master. To us to live will be Christ, and to die gain.
2. And this easily leads us to the second pointour Lords commendation of His spirit into the hands of His Father. If we have in any way learnt to surrender our wills to God, we shall not find it hard to commend our whole being to Him. The right to do so has been won for us by Christ. That which would be an abomination to Him, who charges even the angels with folly, becomes a sweet-smelling sacrifice when united with the Sinless Victim of the Cross. Christs offering was a double oneHis own Divinity and our humanity. Ours must be double alsoourselves with Christ, Christ with ourselves. And this also is a work not for a few great and rare occasions, but for our whole life. In all that we do we must ever be commending ourselves, in union with Christ, to God. Yet there are times when it may be done with more than usual solemnity and devotion; and among these surely is our Easter Communion. Let Easter morning, or at least some day in Easter week, find us on our knees before Gods altar, saying with all the humble confidence a sinful soul can cherish, and all the loving self-sacrifice a grovelling heart can feel, Father, into Thy hands I commend my life. Do with me as seemeth best unto Thee in time and in eternity. And as we retire with the seal of Christs body and blood within us, assuring us that the fire of the Lord has fallen upon our offering, we shall know, not by the darkness and the earthquake, but by the light and peace of His presence, that truly this is the Son of God.A. Plummer, D.D.

OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Mar. 15:21. Simon the Cyrenian.Simon was a Jew by descent, probably born, certainly resident, for purposes of commerce, in Cyrene, on the North African coast of the Mediterranean. No doubt he had come up to Jerusalem for the Passover; and, like many strangers, met some difficulty in finding accommodation in the city, and so was obliged to lodge in one of the outlying villages. From this lodging he is coming in, in the morning, knowing nothing about Christ or His trial, and happens to see the procession as it is passing out of the gate. He is compelled by the centurion, for what reason we do not know, to carry the heavy Cross of the Saviour,reluctantly no doubt, but gradually touched into some kind of sympathy; drawn closer and closer, as we suppose, as he looked upon this dying meekness; and at last yielding to the soul-conquering power of Christ.

I. The greatness of trifles.Our lives are like the Cornish rocking-stones, pivoted on little points. The most apparently insignificant things have got such a strange knack of suddenly developing unexpected consequences, and turning out to be not small things at all, but great and decisive and fruitful. And so let us look with ever fresh wonder on this marvellous contexture of human life, and on Him that moulds it all to His own perfect purposes. Let us bring the highest and largest principles to bear on the smallest events and circumstances, for you never can tell which of these is going to turn out a revolutionary and formative influence in your life. And then let us learn this lesson, too, of quiet confidence in Him in whose hands the whole puzzling, overwhelming mystery lies.

II. The blessedness and honour of helping ChristChrists Cross has to be carried to-day; and if we have not found out that it has, let us ask ourselves if we are Christians at all. There will be hostility, alienation, a comparative coolness, and absence of a full sense of sympathy in many people with you, if you are a true Christian. There will be a share of contempt from the wise and the cultivated of this generation, as in all generations. The mud that is thrown after the Master will spatter your faces too, to some extent; and if we are walking with Him, we shall share to the extent of our communion with Him in the feelings with which many men regard Him. Stand to your colours! Do not be ashamed of the Master in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. And there is another way in which this honour of helping the Lord is given to us. As in His weakness He needed some one to aid Him to bear His Cross, so in His glory He needs our help to carry out the purposes for which the Cross was borne. The paradox of a man carrying the Cross of Him who carried the worlds burden is repeated in another form too. He needs nothing, and yet He needs us.

III. The perpetual recompense and record of humblest Christian work.How little Simon knew that where-ever in the whole world this gospel was preached, there also this that he had done should be told for a memorial of him! Why, men have fretted their whole lives away to get what this man got, and knew nothing of one line in that chronicle of fame. And so we may say it shall be always, I will never forget any of their works. We may not leave them on any records that men can read. What of that, if they are written in letters of light in that Lambs Book of Life, to be read out by Him before His Father and the holy angels in that last great day. We may not leave any separable traces of our service, any more than the little brook that comes down some gully on the hillside flows separate from its sisters, with whom it has coalesced in the bed of the great river or in the rolling, boundless ocean. What of that so long as the work, in its consequences, shall last!A. Maclaren, D.D.

The firstfruits of the heathen world.The Synoptists in the accounts which they give of the Crucifixion bring into prominent notice Simon of Cyrene as the man who was compelled to bear the Cross of Christ, and with this brief notice he disappears apparently from the pages of Scripture. I think, however, if we look a little more closely, we shall find that he reappears in Act. 13:1 as a member of the early Church under the name of Simeon, who was called Niger. My view of the matter was suggested by the following considerations:

1. Simon and Simeon are interchangeable names, as where in Act. 15:14 Simon Peter is called Simeon.

2. Simon of Cyrene might appropriately have been called Niger, in allusion to the colour of his skin, coming as he did from Africa.

3. Simeon, who was called Niger, is mentioned in Act. 13:1, in close juxtaposition with Lucius of Cyrene. I might further add, not as an argument, but as a fitting corollary to the circumstances, that we can scarcely think that Simon would not have been greatly impressed by the scenes which he witnessed, if indeed he did not receive some personal blessing from our Lordhe who in so real a sense had borne the Cross up the hill to Calvary, who had come into such close contact with Christ at such a critical moment, and who in all probability had been an eye-witness of the Crucifixion. So that we might almost expect to find him a member of the early Church, or at least would meet him there without surprise. If this identity be a real one, we see in Simon of Cyrene the very firstfruits of the heathen world.G. F. Assinder.

Providential leadings.What moved Simon to take that turning in the streets which brought him to Christ and His Cross, and just at the very moment he was needed? We cannot say. How curiously we are led! We take one turning in life rather than another, hardly knowing why, and the whole of our after-history is changed. It is not chanceit is God and ourselves. We often say that our lives are very dull and commonplacethere is nothing romantic or interesting about themtheir story is not worth the telling. If we could only see them for a moment as God sees them, how different they would look! If we could only see the meaning and importance of the events which are taking place, of the things we do so thoughtlessly, the words we speak so carelessly, and understand the eternal interests involved in every hour that we live, we need not seek for romance outside the narrow circle in which we live.R. T. Cunningham.

Cross-bearing is never pleasant, take it at its best; there is always a sting and a hardship in it which makes us smart at the time: take it as for the most part we know it, and we shall find that we generally murmur and resist and complain, and try to shake it from our shoulders. But it must be done. It is through tribulation that our characters are perfected and heaven is won. So God does not ask our permission, or whether we are willing. He lays His Cross upon us, and compels us to carry it. Thank God He does!R. T. Cunningham.

Carrying Christs Cross.Christs Cross-bearing is not over yet; after nineteen hundred years He is still carrying it; and somehow I cannot but think of Him as continually tired and needing help. We can do something to relieve the sin and wretchedness beside which we live; and in relieving it we are making Christs Cross easier for Him to bear.Ibid.

The Cross of Christ is the pivot of history.On this the doors of ancient life shut and modern history open. Heathen nations, however new or young, are ancient; Christian nations, however old, are modern. Western civilisation began on Calvary. Significant is the fact that the root of the word stauros (cross), descending from the Sanskrit, and meaning what stands or is fixed, and thence reappearing in all the Indo-Germanic languages of Europe, is a figure of historys humblest yet mightiest landmark. On the head of that Cross were joined in one those three languages which represented religion, culture, and law, typifying the three world civilisations that were to become confluent and be vitalised by a Divine Person and character, and His ever-abiding Spirit. Asia furnished alike the Victim and him who delivered Him up; Europe the judge, tribunal, and executioners; but Africa bore the Cross. In this the century of hope for the Dark Continent, let it be remembered that one of her sons, in vicarious labour, carried that Cross on which the Redeemer of the African, as well as of the Asian and European, bore the sins of humanity.

Mar. 15:22. Golgotha.The most approved explanation of this name is that it denotes a place slightly elevated and skull-shaped. The Latin designation, Calvary, which comes from the Vulgate, may or may not be meant to express the same meaning. That it was a place where the skulls of malefactors executed there were found is fanciful and improbable, because the Jews would not have suffered it, who were so careful to avoid everything Levitically unclean. Though Christ was suffering so much at this moment, and was about to suffer so much more intensely, He forgot Himself, and thought only of the distress of those who followed Him weeping and wailing, who soon, in the judgments that were hastening to fall on the guilty city, would themselves suffer such hitherto unknown calamities (Luk. 23:27-31).H. B. Hackett, D.D.

Mar. 15:23-26. The mystery of eternity. Death by crucifixion was of all deaths the most shameful and most horriblea pagan penalty that Judaism had never adopted, and one only inflicted by pagans on those of whom it was meant to make a horrible example. Wounding no vital part, and not robbing the victim of any blood, it was a death horribly lingering; while infinite varieties of anguishfrom the crushed nerves, from the weight of the body, from the exposure to the scorching sun, from the fever set up by the wounds, and, in Christs case, from the back ridged and furrowed, where each stroke of the lash had cut through the fleshall conspired to make it a death of horror. Yet this is inflicted on Jesus, the Son of God, whose crime was mercy, whose mission here was one of redeeming love.

I. All the mysteries of human nature are here.

1. That of sin: depravity, as we have already noted, shewing itself clearly here, and demonstrating the corruption of mankind.
2. That of free-will is here. God restrains our sin by truth, mercy, grace, appeal, and warning, but not by force. Mans freedom to wreck his immortal nature is shewn conspicuously here.

3. That of judgment is here suggested strongly. After these things must there not be some reckoning? (Luk. 23:31).

II. The mysteries of Divine revelation are here.Not till a man has seen God in Christ on the Cross has he seen God. Here all marvels of God are displayed.

1. The mystery of Gods love is here. Nature reveals Gods wisdom; providence, His mercy and His judgment; but Calvary reveals His heart. It displays Gods passion of mercy, His yearning to bless, His appreciation of man, His power of sacrifice.
2. The mystery of Gods meekness is here. Daily He turns the left cheek to those who smote the right, and men mistake His patience for indifference to their faults. Here the meekness and lowliness of the Lord God Almighty are displayed.
3. The mystery of Gods method of curing sin is here. By enduring its strokes He shames and vanquishes transgression.

III. The mysteries of salvation are here.

1. For here is atonement. The sin of man had never been adequately owned, prayed for, counterbalanced. But by accepting deathits penaltyChrist owns the death-worthiness of our sin. In His prayer, Father, forgive them; they know not what they do, He makes intercession for the whole guilty race. And there is enough love, faith, obedience, goodness, in Christs dying to more than balance all the dishonour a worlds transgression has done its God. This owning, praying for, repairing the wrong of a worlds transgression is atonement.

2. Reconciliation is here (Joh. 10:17; 1Jn. 4:19). Our love meets Gods love there, and we are reconciled.

3. The mystery of a great inspiration is here. Ever since, the Cross has been the pattern on the mount which holy lives have copied, and it has inspired love and sacrifice into countless hearts.

IV. All mysteries of consolation are here.Had Christ evaded death, who would have dared to face it? But when He has been with us in passing through the waters, He has changed Jordans streams into still waters and its banks to green pastures. Death fixed its sting in Christ and left and lost it there. He hath abolished death (2Ti. 1:10) by dying, and the consolations of peace and of immortal hope come from it. Thus Christs Cross is our Alpha and Omega, glowing with law and gospel, comfort and constraint, power and peace; it is the new tree of life in the midst of lifes wilderness. Let us refuse to glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.R. Glover.

Mar. 15:23. Wine mingled with myrrh.Literally, myrrhed wine, that is, drugged wine, to produce heartening it might be (see Bartholinus, de vino myrrhato, in his De Cruce, p. 136), or to induce comparative ansthesis or insensibility. Myrrh is a strong stimulant. The administration of drugged wine to criminals about to suffer was a merciful custom, which relieved to a small degrees the excessive ferocity so characteristic of the executions of those olden times (see Buxtorfs Lexicon Talmudic, p. 2131, and Wetstein in loc). But He received it not. Or, as the reading is in the Sinaitic and Vatican manuscripts, and the queen of the cursives

(33), who, however, received it not ( instead of ). Our Lord did not Wish to use any artificial means to mitigate or otherwise modify His sense of the sufferings connected with the culmination of His work. The value of these sufferings centred in the free activity that, first of all, chose their endurance, in consideration of the sublime moral ends to be subserved, and then self-sacrificingly held out, under their undiminished superincumbence, till all was finished.J. Morison, D.D.

Mar. 15:24-25. When they had crucified Him, i.e. when they had affixed Him to the Cross. A world of pain is hidden behind these simple words. Stripping the Sufferer of cloak and coat, the outer and inner tunic, the soldiers would place Him on the Cross as it lay on the ground, and, stretching His arms across the cross-beam, drive the point of a large iron nail through one open palm after the other with blows from a mallet. They would then draw the legs down the upright, and drive another such nail through either foot, or perhaps through both together. Then, lifting the Cross into its socket, fresh pangs would thrill along all the fine and sensitive nerves thus lacerated, and the whole body would be racked with excruciating pains. All this He endured for us men and our salvation. And it seems probable that it was at this point that, instead of breaking into a scream of agony, He uttered the prayer for His murderers which Luke (Luk. 23:34) records, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.S. Cox, D.D.

Mar. 15:26. The King of the Jews.Jesus is a King, and the King of the Jews; and neither the insult of Pilate, nor the anxious denial of the multitude, can affect the reality of that fact in the smallest degree. Though humbled, insulted, and crucified, Jesus was and is at once the King of Israel and the Head and Sovereign of every immortal man. To Him the Almighty has assigned the throne of His father David; and that throne, therefore, He needs must occupy. Nay, He has been exalted to kingly supremacy over the whole universe; and that kingly supremacy all must acknowledge, or perish.J. Cochrane.

Mar. 15:27-28. Christs companions in shame.Pilate may have to surrender Barabbas, the leader of the band, to the clamour of powerful hypocrites; he all the more readily will crucify two of his comrades. If he is to crucify Christ, he will label Him King of the Jews, and give Him two thieves to keep Him company, in token of the sort of nation He would have to rule. The fact that such association dishonours Christ does not prevent him ordering it when it may give him the sweets of a little revenge in shewing his contempt for everything Jewish. Yet even so there is something very instructive as the association of transgressors with Him in His death.

1. It is suggestive of the philosophy of the Atonement. The prophecy alluded to in Mar. 15:28 was quoted by Jesus Himself (Luk. 22:37), and gives the simplest theory of the Atonement which we can frame. Numbered with two conspicuous transgressors, the fact suggested that God had numbered Him with the whole race of transgressors, and permitted the common penalty of the worlds sin to fall on Him. He is associated with us in our curse, that we may be associated with Him in heavenly bliss.

2. Where most need and misery are, there Christ always is. On His Cross He is near those dying on a cross. He is always nearest the neediest.
3. Be not over-solicitous of reputation. Christ is classed with thieves, Paul with deceivers. One of the most universal of afflictions for Christs sake is being misunderstood. Marvel not if your name be cast out as evil.R. Glover.

Mar. 15:28. Fulfilment of Scripture at the Crucifixion.Above every other aspect, the crucifixion of Christ was fulfilment. Let any one familiar with the language of prophet and psalmist pencil-mark every one of their words, verses, and versicles found in the Evangelists story of Calvary. The result will be a well-underscored page, and the effect very striking to the eye. In the Greek text, like that of Westcott and Hort, where Old Testament language is printed in uncial or capital letter type, the effect is startling. From many angles of vision, the seers of truth in the past ages caught glimpses of historys most august figure. Many are the photographic outlines set in the Old Testament pages of the Sinless Victim; but they are in profile or silhouette. Not one is perfect, none full-face or express image. Even they who wrote down their visions could not fully compre hend and interpret what they saw. Nevertheless, while inquiring and searching diligently of the salvation to come, they searched what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand of the sufferings of the Messiah and the glory that should follow.

Mar. 15:29-32. Mockers at the Cross.One does not know whether the blindness or the cruelty of these words is the more wonderful. There is nothing so cruel or so blind as religious hatred.

I. Christs Cross apparently shatters to fragments Christs claimsEither Jesus Christ died and rose again from the dead, and then He is the Son of God, and God hath exalted Him to be a Prince and a Saviour, as He claimed to be; or He died like other men, and there is an end of it. And then it is no use to talk about Him as a wise Teacher and a lovely perfect character, He is a fanatical Enthusiast, all the beauty of whose religious teaching is marred and spoiled by the extravagant personal claims which He attached to it. We must dismiss the fair dream of a perfect Man, unless we are prepared to go further and say, an Incarnate God.

II. The Cross of Christ is a necessity, to which He voluntarily submitted in order to save a world.These men only needed to alter one letter to be grandly and gloriously right. If, instead of could not, they had said would not, they would have grasped the very heart of the power and the very central brightness of the glory of Christianity. It was His own will, and no outward necessity, that fastened Him there; and that will was kept steadfast and immovable by nothing else but His loveHe Himself fixed the iron chain which bound Him. He made the cannot. It was His love that made it impossible that He should relinquish the task; therefore His steely will, like a strong spring constantly working, kept Him close up against the sharp edge of the knife that cut into His very hearts life.

III. The Cross is the throne of Christ.His dominion is a dominion based upon suffering, and wielded in gentleness and meekness; and the crown of thorns lies beneath the many diadems that He wears in heaven. The sceptre of reed, light, fragile, emblem of a meek and merciful dominion that lays a light and loving hand upon the inner springs of the will, and commands by serving, is a stronger rod of dominion than all golden jewel-tipped sceptres that monarchs bear.

IV. The death of Christ is the great proof that God had delight in Him.Mystery of mysteries, where blend all opposites in harmonious reconcilement: Divine justice and Divine righteousness; the extremities of humiliation and the superlative of exaltation: life and death, the Divine forsaking and the Divine complacency.A. Maclaren, D.D.

Mar. 15:31. Truth in mockery.Many true things have been said in jest. This is one. Never did a more important truth fall from the lips of a scoffer.

I. A great tribute involuntarily accorded to Jesus.He saved others. They practically condemn their own unbelief and their treatment of Him by making this admission. Even His bitterest enemies could find nothing worse to say about Him than thisthat He had spent His life in acts of self-sacrificing love. And yet they have no compunction in hounding to death the One True Benefactor of mankind!

II. A declaration true in one sense, false in another. Himself He cannot save.

1. Not true in the sense they meant.
(1) That God had disowned Him as an impostor.
(2) That He was unable from want of power.
2. But most blessedly true in a sense far beyond their comprehension.
(1) Christs sufferings and death were part of a Divine plan.

(2) They fulfilled a pledge given (Gen. 3:15).

(3) The object to be attained by them. (a) Gods honour. (b) Mans rescue.

Mar. 15:32. Sight not conducive to faith.An earnest desire to see is but a very ill disposition in order to believe. Had Christ descended from the cross and not died, all faith had been quite destroyed, and He could not have been either the Author or Finisher of it. See here another delusion of human pride, to imagine that miracles are of themselves sufficient to engage men to believeas if faith were not a gift of God. These men will believe, they say, if Christ save Himself from deathwhen they themselves had seen Him raise one who had been dead four days, without any other effect than increasing in envy, incredulity, and hardness of heart. So greatly does the sinner deceive himself.P. Quesnel.

Mar. 15:33. The veiled CrossThe darkening of the sun was the testimony of nature to her dying Lord. It is a hint of the truth that creation is dependent on Him, that nature is supported by unseen and spiritual powers, that the fate of the earth ultimately rests on that of the kingdom of God.

I. The suggestions of this darkness.

1. It indicated the going out of the worlds Light.
2. It represented the ignorance of the Gentiles and the malignity of the Jews.
3. It reminds us of the mystery of the Atonement. Christ went into the darkness to save us from darkness; and when the gloom passed away, and the sun shone upon the Cross, the restored light was like the bow of promise after the Flood, a sign of peace between man and God.

II. The effects of the darkness upon those who surrounded the Cross.

1. It increased the solemnity of the event.
2. It veiled His agony from those around.
3. It whispered warning to the impenitent.A. Rowland.

The supernatural darkness.It was not occasioned by an eclipse, for the full moon cannot intervene between the earth and the sun. It was no doubt supernaturally contrived or overruled, as a fringe of the entire supernatural drapery of the great supernatural event which was transpiring within the Sufferer on the Cross. Not that any universal laws were contravened or suspended. But a new force came in, which limited the scope and modified the direction of the other forces that were ordinarily at work. Or when we go to the ultimates of thought, and to the corresponding ultimates of objective reality, we may represent the case thusa peculiar volition took place in the Divine mind, which modified the action, in that particular scene, of the omnipotent Divine hand. It was meet that there should be around our Lord a penumbra of darkness. It at once reflected the mediatorial eclipse that was going on within, and cast a fitting shade over the guilty population in the immediate vicinity of the scene.J. Morison, D.D.

Mar. 15:34. The causes of Christs desolation.Though we cannot understand this sorrow of our dear Lord, because to us, perhaps, to be forsaken of God would mean so littlethough we feel that we are in the presence of a mystery we cannot fathom, whose depths we cannot enter, at whose brink we can but stand and wonder and adore,yet we may in reverence consider three causes which seem to have produced this element of the Sacred Passion.

1. The first cause of this awful desolation was the fact of the accumulated sin of the whole world, from the disobedience of Eden down to the last intention of sin that shall be disturbed by the archangels trumpet, resting upon one Human Soul, to whom the faintest shadow of sin was intolerable.
2. The second cause was the gathering of the hosts of darkness, vanquished in the wilderness, and in the garden, and in many of the souls they had possessed, but now, rallied and marshalled and massed for one last supreme effort, hurling themselves with the fury of despair and hate upon their Vanquisher.
3. The third cause was the hiding of the Fathers face. He who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity could not look even upon His beloved Son, when deluged thus in our sin.

He hides His face from sinners,

He hideth it from Thee.

And what is all this but hell itself! To be deluged in sin, literally sin-ful, to be surrounded and attacked and tormented on all sides by devils, to be hidden from the light of Gods countenancewhat is all this but the foretaste of that misery of outer darkness, of weeping and gnashing of teeth, of everlasting destruction from the presence of Godthe final awfulness of unrepented sin.H. S. Miles.

The forsaking of Christ by His Father.All His other sufferings seem small by the side of this; they bore rather upon His body, this upon His soul; they came from the hands of men, but this from His Father.

1. This was a penal forsaking, inflicted on Christ for the satisfaction of our sins.
2. It was a real forsaking, not a fictitious one. The Father kept back at this time all the joys, comforts, and love from Christ the Man.
3. This forsaking took place in the very time of Christs need. Yet His soul still cleaves to God for all this.Jas. Lonsdale.

Why God forsakes.For our sins, worldliness, carelessness, coldness, God justly forsakes us. Let us look diligently for the cause. Let us ask, Is it in this thing or in that, that we have grieved Thy Holy Spirit? What duty have we neglected? What evil temper shewn? Do our thoughts wander in prayer? Are we formalists? Are we unthankful for Thy love? So let us search our spirits that nothing escape us.Ibid.

The cry of desertion.Speaking of the words uttered by Christ in this terrible moment of loneliness, one says: When I read what men have written to explain the meaning of Jesus in that cry, I always feel anew how much deeper than our comprehension went His identification with humanity when He plunged into the darkness of its sin. He was made flesh. Into what mysterious contact with the sinfulness to which the flesh of man had given itself that being made flesh brought Him I know no man has ever fathomed. If I try to fathom it at all, I can only picture to myself the most Christlike act, the most Messianic entrance into the strange and dreadful fate of other men which my imagination can conceive. The perfectly Holy One did bear sin, and out of the horrible abyss into which He had plunged came the agonising cry.

The last temptation and triumph.These words are a quotation from the twenty-second Psalm. Are they not more an appropriation of the whole psalm? The words directed the disciples to it as pointing out the current of His thoughts and expressing His condition. Thus they direct us, and in the psalm and its character we must look for the meaning and significance of His cry. Pitying them amid His agony, He cannot tell them all; but calling to mind the old familiar hymn, let them find His heart and its experience and triumph there. Read that psalm as such, and however darkly it opens, that only makes more glorious the psalmists testimony. It is the history of a passionate soul passing through fierce discipline and suffering to confident security and triumph, feeling its way through weakness to strength, proving each step how faithful, how wonderful, is the abiding presence and keeping of God. The passionate cry of its opening verse is but the vivid sense of need, and emphasises the needlessness of all fear, the sureness of Gods enclosing and faithful deliverancethe impossibility of being forsaken, for God delivers even from the horns of the unicorn. Christs utterance told truly His suffering and need, but pointed directly to the sureness of His triumph and glory. By the very words He chooses He would seem to be feeling after and touching His disciples inner thought and weakness, forestalling as it were their despairful fears and conclusion when the tragedy shall be complete; and by pointing in such words their uncomprehending thought, and carrying their minds to this psalm, He would comfort them in its assurances and give them its hope and security. Looked at in the light of the whole psalm, Christ is standing face to face with His sacrifice and work, facing its temptation and measuring Himself with it. The shadow which has crept nearer and nearer, vague but threatening, and deepening into awfulness, through His whole ministry, at length is known and felt, has become palpable and distinct, and holds Him; and He must know its meaning and measure. Isolating Him from human sympathy, it insinuates Him isolated from God also. The fear of the psalmist grows distinct and forceful before His broken and suffering spirit, challenging His faith; He takes it up, and through it moves into the confidence of the psalmist. God doth not abhor the affliction of the afflicted. He hurls the insinuation, baffled and destroyed, from Him by His clear consciousness and confidence in the Father. He has measured His strength and resources, and can drink the cup He has accepted, and, drinking it, His work is finished.S. D, Thomas.

Mar. 15:37. The death of Christ reveals

1. His perfect humanity.
2. A completed work of self-sacrifice.
3. The completeness of His rejection by the world.
4. The completion of the old dispensation.
5. A completed salvation. We instinctively expect consistency in a great and good mans death. We feel he ought to leave the trail of his greatness behind him. His dying influence should adorn what he leaves as witness to his worth. So Christ dies, sinking to rest as the setting sun in a stormful sky, making His lifes close His triumph. You have seen the broken banks of storm-clouds massed in the heavy west of a winters sky, with broken dun cloudlets floating through monotonous grey, changed into splendour by the sinking sun, flushed into rose and floating islets of light and gold, and then the many tints deepening into the deep purple of evenings quiet. So Christ passed and sank to rest, so set the Sun of Righteousness, changing the storm, the tragedy, and Cross by heroism, wondrous words and prayers, into light and glory, deepening into serenity and rest. There was such a nobleness and greatness in the whole we cannot think of it as death; it was but a setting, His lifes work crowned.Ibid.

Mar. 15:38. The veil rent.This veil formed the first mark of distinction which was observed in the use of the Temple with respect to the several gradations of those who worshipped therein. In these gradations consisted a feature of the Jewish Church which was not to be preserved in that which was to succeed it. In the new temple there was to be no family like Aarons, no tribe like Levis, no nation like the Israelites. The partition walls between outward and inner court, between the temple and its holy of holies, were all broken down; and the idolater who came in at the eleventh hour was as free of the new temple as the converted son of Abraham, whose fathers had served there from the first dawn and early morning of the Church. See Heb. 9:1-8; Heb. 10:16-22.S. Hinds.

Mar. 15:39. Recognising nobleness.Next to being noble is the ability to recognise nobleness in others. In fact, this ability indicates a measure of nobleness in oneself; the recognition is a proof of kinship. It is in this as it is in every other line of observation and of outreaching: ones perceptions and attractions and repulsions are the truest test of ones personal character. The next thing to being manly is to recognise and honour manliness in another. The next thing to being unselfish is to recognise and honour unselfishness in another. The next thing to being pure is to recognise and honour purity in another. And the next thing to being Christlike is to perceive the likeness of Christ; indeed, to perceive Christs likeness is in itself to be Christlike.H. C. Trumbull.

Mar. 15:40-41. Women at the Crucifixion.How true to the purpose of womans creation as the helpmeet of man was the association of these faithful, clinging souls with their Lord in His passion! And He, in the perfection of His manhood, did not refuse the comfort of their presence. As He looked down upon that little group of loving faces in the midst of the pitiless crowd that was now surging round His Cross, we may reverently believe that the Son of Man found a little comfort in their true-hearted devotion, seeing in them the firstfruits of the faithful of all time, in whom He should see of the travail of His soul.H. S. Miles.

Womans ministry to Christ.If such a thing is possible, the Saviour had done much more for woman than for man. Some who have rejected the gospel (Comte, for instance) have been the readiest to admit that it has raised the status of women immeasurably. Of the many elements in the gospel which have contributed to this, nothing has been more operative than the services which the Saviour has received from womans hand. The gospel gave them a noble cause, to be advanced by methods of holiest peace; it engaged the love which made such service a delight, and gave the grace which crowned it with supreme success. The ministry of women to the Rabbis was a recognised thing; and Jesus, in His homeless greatness and in His Divine poverty, could receive the gentle tendance of Galilean matrons without reproach.

(1) It is a great cause which enlists the best feelings of the best women on its side.
(2) Some might have objected to their going there, asking, What good could possibly be done? In dealing with such questions it is always safer to trust to the instincts of affection than to our reason. Their heart bade them stand beside Him, and, doing so, they gave a testimony greatly needed and of richest worth, and found themselves ready to help Joseph in his gracious task.

(3) Mary Magdalene, out of whom went seven demons (Luk. 8:2), ought to be regarded as having been a great sufferer whom Christ relieved, not as a great sinner whom Christ forgave. We have in her action the full beauty of gratitude displayed.

(4) Mary, wife of Cleophas (or Alpheus, for these are two forms of one name), is another instance of a good mother having good sons. When we see her heroic love, and that of Salome, who stands beside her, we do not marvel that each of them is the mother of two apostles.
(5) What honour these women find, without having a single thought of working for it! So honour ever flies those who seek, but seeks those who merit it. See to thy work, and God will see to your reward.R. Glover.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 15

Mar. 15:21. The shape of the Cross.The shape of the Cross on which our Lord suffered has been much debated. Some ancient Fathers, fancying they found a typical reference in the crossing of the hands over the head of the scape-goat, and in the peculiar mode in which Jacob blessed his grandsons, often assumed that it was in the form of what is commonly called a St. Andrews cross; others again, seeing in the mystical mark or Tau set upon the foreheads of the righteous in Ezekiels vision a foreshadowing of the Cross, concluded that it was like that which bears the name of St. Anthony, in form like a capital T. It is far more probable that it was what is known familiarly as the Latin cross. It was prefigured by the transverse spits which the priest placed in the paschal lamb. Its four arms, pointing to the four quarters of the globe, symbolised the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of Christs universal Church. It is a strong argument in favour of this form that the inscription was set above the head of the Crucified, which would be impossible in either of the other forms.Dean Luckock.

Mar. 15:24. Stripped of His raiment.Dr. Norman Macleod relates the following incident: Tom Baird, the carter, the beadle of my working-mans church, was as noble a fellow as ever livedGod-fearing, true, unselfish. I shall never forget what he said when I asked him to stand at the door of the working-mans congregation, and when I thought he was unwilling to do so in his working clothes. If, said I, you dont like to do it, Tom; if you are ashamed Ashamed I he exclaimed, as he turned round upon me, Im mair ashamed o yersel sir. Div ye think that I believe, as ye ken 1 do, that Jesus Christ, who died for me, was stripped o His raiment on the Cross, and that INa, na, Im prood to stand at the door. Dear, good fellow I There he stood for seven winters, without a sixpence of pay, all from love, though at my request the working congregation gave him a silver watch. When he was dying from small-pox, the same unselfish nature appeared. When asked if they would let me know, he replied: Theres nae man leevin I like as I do him. I know he would come. But he shouldna come on account of his wife and bairns, and so ye maunna tell him I I never saw him in his illness, never hearing of his danger till it was too late.

A hardened gamester.There was a profligate gamester whose conversion was attempted by some honest monks, and they, in order to break his heart for sin, put into his hands a fine picture of the crucifixion of Christ; but when they inquired what he was studying so intently in the picture, hoping his conversion was going forward, he replied. I was examining whether the dice with which the soldiers are casting lots for the garment be like ours. This man too well resembles bad men in the ceremonies of religion, for their hearts guide their eyes to what may nourish their vices, not to what would destroy them.

Mar. 15:25. The Gross explains the worlds mystery.In the Palace of Justice at Rome they take you sometimes into a chamber with strangely painted frescoes on the ceiling, and around the walls, and upon the floor, in all kinds of grotesque forms. You cannot reduce them to harmony; you cannot make out the perspective; it is all a bewildering maze of confusion. But there is one spot upon the floor of that room, and one only, standing upon which every line falls into harmony; the perspective is perfect, the picture flashes out upon you, instinct with meaning in every line and panel. You can see at that point, and that only, the design of the artist that painted it. I believe that this world is just as bewildering a maze looked at at every point except one. I look back upon the records of history; I look upon the speculations of science; I endeavour to gaze into the future of this worlds career; wherever I turn I am opposed by the mysteries that hem me in and crush me down, until I take my stand at the foot of the Cross. Then darkness and discord become light and harmony; the mystery is solved; the night that shuts me in becomes radiant with the Divine light and glory. At the foot of the Cross art, science, literature, history, become at once to me a Divine, a glorious, and a blessed thing. And so I claim for my Lord His rightful dominion over all the works of His hands. We will gather all the beauties of art, all the treasures of music, all that is brightest and best in this world, and we will lay them down at His feet; for worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive might, and majesty, and riches, and power, and honour, and glory. His is the sceptre, His is the right, His this universal world.Dr. Manning.

The Cross the sufferers support.A poor woman in a ward of one of the great London hospitals had to undergo a fearful operation, and as a special favour besought that it might be performed on Good Friday, which was close at hand, that the reflexion on her Redeemers agony might the better enable her to endure her own sufferings.A preacher has found an illustration of the saving efficacy of the Redeemers work in the great breakwater or pier which stretches in front of Plymouth Harbour, on which all the force of the storms expend their violence, and behind whose solid strength the ships of many a distant land find shelter and security. So does the atonement of Christ offer us rest for our souls, if only we seek it as our refuge; and so too, when the things of this world are full of bitterness, we shall find life sweetened and purified by means of the Cross.

Mar. 15:31. Salvation of others by self-sacrifice.

1. A converted Japanese was explaining the Atonement. He used this touching illustration: A woman was crossing the great plain. She carried a child on her back. When in the midst of the plain, she looked suddenly behind her and saw that it was afire. She had but a moment to think. She laid down the child, desperately scooped with her hands a hole in the earth, with trembling haste laid the child in it, and covered it with her own body. There they found the two. The poor mother was dead, but the child was saved. So Jesus died for me, said the simple-hearted convert. That I might live, He put His body between me and everlasting fire.
2. When Dr. Bushnell, after telling one of his children that if he touched the plants in the conservatory his own geranium, as a penalty, should be put in the cellar, and, seeing the child disobey, put his own geranium, the largest and most beautiful of all, into the cellar instead, the boy understood the sacrifice of feelings thus madethat if he was to be spared, and his fathers word respected, his father must suffer.
3. A wealthy young man, living in London, undertook to improve the condition of the poor of that vast city. For this purpose he visited them and gave away large sums. But within a short time he discovered that, if he was to do any permanent good, he must live among them. He did not hesitate. He took a lodging in the heart of the Seven Dials, the worst district of the city. There he toiled until he died. He was cut off in the beginning of his work, but he succeeded. He had found the secret of his callingthat if he would save, he must Buffer.

Self-sacrificing devotion.Edwin, King of Northumbria, in 617 gave audience to an envoy from the King of Wessex. In the midst of the conference the envoy started to his feet, drew a dagger from his robe, and rushed madly on the king. Lilla, one of the royal band, threw himself between Edwin and the assassin; but so furious was the stroke that even through Lillas body the dagger still reached its aim. The king, however, soon recovered, though his devoted servant died.

Sacrifice to save.In the early days of the American settlement Captain John Smith was among the most intrepid of the explorers, and earned for himself the title of Father of the Colony. He was once seized by the Indians and held in captivity, being afterwards sentenced to death. A tenderhearted Indian maiden, touched with pity, interceded for him, but in vain, and then flung herself beneath the executioners axe, and clasped the victim in her arms, risking her own life, but saving the captain and the colony of Virginia.

Mar. 15:33. Christ eclipsed.A pious astronomer, in describing an eclipse which he witnessed in Norway, says: I watched the instantaneous extinction of light, and saw the glorious scene on which I had been gazing turned into darkness. All the horizon seemed to speak of terror, death, and judgment; and overhead sat, not the clear flood of light which a starry night sends down, but there hung over me dark and leaden blackness, which seemed as if it would crush me into the earth. And as I beheld it I thought, How miserable is the soul to whom Christ is eclipsed! The thought was answered by a voice; for a fierce and powerful seabird which had been swooping around us, apparently infuriated at our intrusion on its domain, poured out a scream of despairing agony when it was surprised in the darkness. What, then, will be the fearful surprise when the lost soul finds itself in that world where hope withering flees, and mercy sighs, Farewell!

Natures sympathy with her Lord.We feel a deep appropriateness in the sympathy of nature with the crucifixion of our Lord, in the profound darkness that overspread the earth as the outer token of the spiritual darkness that overwhelmed His soul, and in the rending of the rocks that accompanied the rending of His mortal flesh and the separation between soul and body. Superstition has sought for farther proofs than those which Scripture gives of such sympathy, and imagined that it has found them in the continual trembling to this day of the leaves of the aspen when all around is still, as if in shuddering recollection of the use made of its wood for the construction of the cross; and also in the dark stains that appear ineffaceably on the leaves and the crimson spots that mingle with the white blossoms on one of the commonest weeds of our cornfields, said by tradition to have grown beneath the Cross. And the scarlet anemones, which blaze in spring-like embodied flames on the hills of Palestine, are called by the Christian residents blood-drops of Christ, under the idea that these beautiful flowers were dyed with the blood that issued from our Saviours pierced side. Unfounded as these superstitions are, it must be confessed, notwithstanding, that there is something in them that appeals to our natural sense of fitness. It is difficult to realise that nature should hold on serenely in her accustomed way while her Lord was dying. We should have expected that the supernatural darkness would have continued all the timethat the fields would languish and the flowers fade in token of their deep sympathy with the death of Him who gave them all their beauty, and whose smile of blessing rested always upon them while He trod the earth,Hugh Macmillan, D.D.

Mar. 15:37. The death of Death.A Greenland missionary relates the following: Last winter, Jacob, a native assistant of mine, was summoned to his rest. On the day before his death, having been asked how he felt, he replied, I shall not rise from this bed again; I am called hence to the Lord. He then raised his arm, stretched it out and said, Look! my arm is nothing but bones and skin. It is the same with my earthly body: the flesh is dead within me; my desire is fixed on my heavenly countrythat country where I shall behold Him who loves me and whom I love. Yes, I shall see Him shortly. When asked whether he feared death, Oh no, he answered; how can I love Christ and fear death? The death of Christ was the death of Death.

Mar. 15:39. Power of the Cross.The well-known story of Colonel Gardiners conversion illustrates the power of the Cross. He lived a gay life, and after having spent the Sunday evening in carousing retired to his room, when he took up a book entitled The Christian Soldier, intending to make fun of it. He fell asleep with the book in his hand, and dreamed: a blaze of light shone on the book, and overhead he saw suspended in the air a vivid representation of the Saviour on the Cross. Distinctly he heard a voice saying, This I did for thee: what hast thou done for Me? He awoke, and filled with contrition he sought and found pardon and peace.One afternoon a man stood in Antwerp Cathedral gazing at Rubens Descent from the Cross. He was so absorbed in what he saw, that when the verger came and told him it was time to close the cathedral he exclaimed, No, no, not yet; wait until they get Him down.

Involuntary testimony to the Divinity of Christ.A well-known learned man of Saxony, after having all His life long attacked Jesus and his gospel with all the weapons of sophistry he could command, was in his old age partially deprived of his reason, chiefly through the fear of death, and frequently fell into reigious paroxysms of a peculiar nature. He was almost daily observed conversing with himself, while pacing to and fro in his chamber, on one of the walls of which, between other pictures, hung one of the Saviour. Repeatedly he halted before the latter, and said in a horrifying tone of voice, After all, Thou wast only a man. Then after a short pause he would continue, What wast Thou more than a man? Ought I to worship Thee? No, I will not worship Thee, for Thou art only Rabbi Jesus, Josephs son, of Nazareth. Uttering these words, he would return with a deeply affected countenance, and exclaim, What dost Thou say? That Thou earnest from above! How terribly Thou eyest me! Oh, Thou art dreadful! But Thou art only a man, after all! Then he would again rush away, but soon return with faltering step, crying out, What! Art Thou in reality the Son of God? The same scenes were daily renewed, till the unhappy man, struck by paralysis, dropped down dead; and then really stood before his Judge, who, even in His picture had so strikingly and overpoweringly judged him.

Rousseaus testimony to the death of Christ.Rousseau once wrote in one of his better moments that if the death of Socrates was that of a sage, the death of Jesus was that of a God. It may be too, probably, that he wrote not as one who adores, but as one who admires. Bitter epigrams on Rousseaus sentence were not wanting. It may be a pretty turn, some one said, but then, unluckily, it is absurd. But He who in one undivided Person is God and Man, who died His death, is so different from all others that the paradox of Rousseau is literally true.Bishop Wm. Alexander.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

6. JESUS CRUCIFIED 15:21-39

TEXT 5:21-39

And they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to go with them, that he might bear his cross. And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. And they offered him wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not. And they crucify him, and part his garments among them, casting lots upon them, what each should take. And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. And with him they crucify two robbers: one on his right hand, and one on his left. And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ha! thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself, and come down from the cross. In like manner also the chief priests mocking him among themselves with the scribes said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reproached him.
And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elijah. And one ran, filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, Let be; let us see whether Elijah cometh to take him down. And Jesus uttered a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 15:21-39

888.

Who compelled Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross?

889.

Cf. Luk. 23:26some feel Simon carried the cross with Jesuswhat do you think?

890.

Are we to conclude Simon was a negro?

891.

Why mention that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus?

892.

Why was Simon of Cyrene coming to Jerusalem?

893.

How far was the cross carried?a mile? less than a mile? More than a mile?

894.

Why call the place of crucifixionGolgotha?

895.

What was the purpose of offering the wine and myrrh? Who offered it to Him? (Please read the parallel accounts.) Mat. 27:34.

896.

Why didnt Jesus drink the potion offered?

897.

Are we to understand that since four garments and the robe were taken from our Lord that He was crucified without any covering? Cf. Mat. 27:35; Joh. 19:23; Luk. 23:34.

898.

Did they cast lots for all the garments?

899.

Please read the four versions of the superscription (l) Mat. 27:35 (2) Mar. 15:26 (3) Luk. 23:38 (4) Joh. 19:16how shall we account for this difference? (please remember in how many languages it was written).

900.

The two robbers could have been partners in crime with whom?

901.

Who were the persons who railed on Him? What incited such persons to do this?

902.

Why mention especially the destruction of the temple?

903.

Why couldnt Jesus answer their taunts and save Himself?

904.

Note Mar. 15:31it contains the greatest truth in the universeand yet a terrible lie. Designate each.

905.

If Jesus had delivered Himself from the cross what would have been the reaction of those who mocked Him?the immediate reaction and the lasting reaction.

906.

Did both thieves deride Jesus?Discuss.

907.

What particular type of darkness was present?i.e. an eclipsea storm? or What? Name the hours (our time).

908.

How extensive was the darkness?how intense?

909.

What happened during the three hours from 12 to 3?

910.

Was Jesus quoting scripture intentionally or was this a spontaneous expression of His own deep need? Did God forsake Him? Discuss.

911.

Why did some think He called for Elijah?

912.

What was the purpose of offering wine at this time? What is the difference between a reed and hyssop? Cf. Joh. 19:29.

913.

When Jesus cried with a loud voice what did He Say? Cf. Joh. 19:30 and Luk. 23:46.

914.

Is there some significance in the fact that He cried with a loud voice? i.e. as the manner of His death.

915.

What meaning is there in the fact that the temple veil was torn?

916.

The centurion at the cross seems to admit two things in his statementwhat were they?

COMMENT

TIME.Friday, April 7, A.D. 30, between the hours of 9 A.M. and 3 P.M.

Place.The Lord was taken by the soldiers without the city to a place called Calvary (the place of a skull), or Golgotha, to be crucified. The site is uncertain, and travelers have differed much concerning its location. Dr. Barclay thinks it was on the east side of the city, just south of St. Stephens gate, on the Goath of Jer. 31:39, a tongue or spur of land projecting southeasterly into the Kedron valley toward Gethsemane. Others place it on the northwest of the city. It was, (1) apparently a well-known spot; (2) outside the gate (compare Heb. 13:12); but (3) near the city (Joh. 19:20); (4) on a thoroughfare leading into the country (Luk. 23:26); and (5) contained a garden or orchard (Joh. 19:41). Tradition has for sixteen centuries pointed out the site of the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the actual spot; but it is highly probable that this spot was inside the city wall at that time. The question is of little practical importance; for the apostles and evangelists barely allude to the place of Christs birth, death, and resurrection. They fixed their eyes on the great facts themselves, and worshipped the exalted Savior in heaven where he forever lives.

Parallel Accounts.Mat. 27:27-37; Luk. 23:26-38; Joh. 19:1-24.

Outline.1. The Lord Nailed to the Cross. 2. The Lord Numbered with Transgressors. 3. The Earth Draped in Mourning.

ANALYSIS

I.

THE LORD NAILED TO THE CROSS, Mar. 15:21-26.

1.

The Lord Led to Golgotha. Mar. 15:22; Mat. 27:33; Luk. 23:33; Joh. 19:17.

2.

The Stupefying Cup Refused. Mar. 15:23; Mat. 27:34.

3.

His Garments Parted by Lot. Mar. 15:24; Mat. 27:35; Joh. 19:23; Luk. 23:34.

4.

The Superscription on the Cross. Mar. 15:26; Mat. 27:37; Joh. 19:19.

II.

THE LORD NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS, Mar. 15:27-32.

1.

The Lord Between Thieves. Mar. 15:27; Mat. 27:38; Luk. 23:32; Isa. 53:12.

2.

The Railing of the Multitude. Mar. 15:29; Mat. 27:40; Luk. 23:35.

3.

The Rulers Mock Him. Mar. 15:31; Mat. 27:41; Luk. 23:35.

III.

THE EARTH DRAPED IN MOURNING, Mar. 15:33-39.

1.

The Land Darkened. Mar. 15:33; Mat. 27:45; Luk. 23:45.

2.

The Cry Upon the Cross. Mar. 15:34; Mat. 27:46.

3.

It is Finished Mar. 15:37; Mat. 27:50; Luk. 23:46; Joh. 19:30.

4.

The Veil of the Temple was Rent. Mar. 15:38; Mat. 27:51.

5.

The Centurions Confession. Mar. 15:39; Luk. 23:47.

INTRODUCTION

Crucifixion.Nothing demonstrates more forcibly the malignity of the Jews than their persistent and boisterous demand that Jesus should be crucified, Other forms of execution were common; stoning, as in the case of Stephen; killing with the sword, as in the case of James; beheading, as in the case of John the Baptist, and, among the Romans, strangling, Crucifixion had never been adopted by the Jews. Even to hang a corpse upon a tree was accounted among them a great indignity (Deu. 21:22-23). It was inflicted on Jewish malefactors by the Romans because it was regarded with such horror. Cicero called it a punishment most inhuman and shocking, and wrote of it that it should be removed from the eyes and ears and every thought of man. The Romans reserved it for slaves and foreigners whom they despised. Yet it was this most shameful and terrible of all deaths which the Jews call on Pilate to inflict upon a prisoner whom he had pronounced innocent. The terrible details of such a death should be noted in order to comprehend what our Savior suffered for us, and I have condensed from Farrar and Geikie the following description of a death on the cross: He was stripped naked of all his clothes. He was laid down upon the implement of torture, His arms were stretched along the cross-beams, and at the center of the open palms the point of a huge iron nail was placed, which, by the blow of a mallet, was driven home into the wood. Then through either foot separately, or possibly through both together, as they were placed one over the other, another huge nail tore its way through the quivering flesh. To prevent the hands and feet being torn away by the weight of the body, which could not rest upon nothing but four great wounds, there was, about the center of the cross, a wooden projection strong enough to support, at least in part, a human body, which soon became a weight of agony. And then the accursed tree, with its living human burden hanging upon it in helpless agony, and suffering fresh tortures as every movement irritated the fresh rents in hands and feet, was slowly heaved up by strong arms and the end of it fixed firmly in a hole dug deep in the ground for that purpose. The body was terribly wrenched when the cross was raised and dropped into its place; the concussion often dislocated the limbs. Inflammation of the wounds in both hands and feet speedily set in, and ere long rose also in other places where the circulation was checked by the tension of the parts; intolerable thirst and ever-increasing pain resulted; the blood, which could no longer reach the extremities, rose to the head, swelling the veins and arteries in it unnaturally, and causing the most agonizing tortures in the brain; besides, it could no longer move freely from the lungs; the heart grew more and more oppressed, and all the veins were distended. Had the wounds bled freely it would have been a great relief, but there was very little lost. The weight of the body itself, resting on the wooden pin of the upright beam, the burning heat of the sun, scorching the veins, and the hot winds which dried up the moisture of the body, made each moment more terrible than that before. The numbness and stiffness of the more distant muscles brought on painful convulsions; and this numbness, slowly extending, sometimes through two or three days, at last reached the vital parts, and released the sufferer by death.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

I.

THE LORD NAILED TO THE CROSS.

Mar. 15:21. They compel one Simon a Cyrenian. The Roman officer had official authority to press into the military service, for a special purpose, either horses or men. See Mat. 5:41. A Cyrenian. There were many Simons, or Simeons, among the early Christians; but this one was distinguished from all the rest as Simon of Cyrene, a great and flourishing city of North Africa. It lay between Alexandria on the east and Carthage on the west. This ancient city is now a heap of ruins. Coming out of the country. Going up to Jerusalem to attend the feast of the passover. Alexander and Rufus. It is taken for granted that they were well known at the time when the gospel was written, and hence, doubtless, they were Christians of some note in the church. Bear his cross. Jesus at first bore his own cross (Joh. 19:17), as was customary. Tradition says that our Lord sunk to the ground beneath the load; but the more exact expression of Luk. 23:26 shows that the after-part of the cross alone, which usually dragged upon the ground, was put upon Simon.Schaff. Here, as always, the Savior bears the heaviest part of the burden.

Mar. 15:22. Golgotha. A Hebrew word, meaning a skull. From its Latin equivalent, calvaria, comes our English word Calvary, which occurs in the English New Testament only in Luk. 23:33, where it should be translated a skull. The significance of the name is uncertain. Some suppose it was the common place of execution, and that the skulls of those who were executed lay about; others that it was a bare rounded knoll, in form like a skull. For further remarks on the locality see Place.

Mar. 15:23. They gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh. This was a stupefying drink to deaden the pain. It was composed of vinegar or sour wine, in which were mingled certain bitter drugs. It was customary for compassionate people to give a stupefying drink to criminals on their way to execution. It is stated in the Talmud that there was an association of women in Jerusalem who sought to alleviate the sufferings of the crucified in this way. Luk. 23:27 may refer to the women who provided the drink. The effect of the draught was to dull the nerves, to cloud the intellect, to provide an anesthetic against some part, at least, of the lingering agonies of that dreadful death. He received it not. The tasting (Mat. 27:34) implied a recognition of the kindly purpose of the act, but a recognition only. In the refusal to do more than this we see the resolute purpose to drink the cup which his Father had given him to the last drop, and not to dull, either the sense of suffering or the clearness of his communion with his Father with the slumbrous potion.

Mar. 15:24. When they had crucified him. Nailed him to the cross, For details see Crucifixion in the Introduction. There were three forms of crosses; the first in the shape of the letter X, called the crux decussato, or, later, St. Andrews cross; one in the form of the letter T, called the crux commissa, or, later, St. Anthonys cross; and third, the Latin cross, or crux immissa, like the preceding one, except that the upright beam projects above the horizontal one. That the Latin cross was the one on which Jesus was crucified, is indicated by uniform tradition. They parted his garments, casting lots. The garments were perquisites of the executioners. As there were four soldiers there would be four shares. The inner robe, however, like the robes of the priests, was of one piece, woven from the top, without any seam or stitching and would be destroyed by rending. The dice were ready in their pocket, and one of their brazen helmets would serve to throw them; it would be better to cast lots for this, and let him who won the highest number keep it for himself; and so it was done. No wonder that both Matthew and John, looking back on the scene, were struck by the fact that it had been written, ages before, in the twenty-second Psalm, which the Jews of that day, as well as Christians, rightly believed to refer to the Messiah, They parted my garments among them, and for my vesture they cast lots.Geikie.

Mar. 15:25. The third hour, according to the Jewish reckoning, that is, from sunrise, about nine oclock of our time. But, according to John (Joh. 19:14), it was already the sixth hour when Pilate made his last attempt to rescue him. A solution is, that John, writing primarily for the churches of Asia Minor, uses the Roman mode of reckoning, that is, from midnight.

Mar. 15:26. The superscription of his accusation. It was the Roman custom to place on the cross over the criminals head, a titulus, or placard, stating the crime for which he suffered. Luke (Luk. 23:38) says that the title was written in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, the chief languages then spoken, and all spectators would be able to read it. The superscription is given differently by each evangelist: This is Jesus the King of the Jews (Mat. 27:37). The King of the Jews (Mar. 15:26). This is the King of the Jews (Luk. 23:38). Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews (Joh. 19:16). Although no serious and sensible writer would dream of talking about a discrepancy here, it is very probable that the differences arise from the different forms assumed by the title in the three languages. King of the Jews. The inscription stated the offense of which Jesus had been found guilty. Pilate intended that the inscription should have a sting in it for the chief priests and elders and scribes.

II.

THE LORD NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS.

Mar. 15:27. With him they crucify two thieves. Rather, robbers; in all probability partners in the crime of Barabbas. The mountain robbers, or banditti, were always ready to take part in such desperate risings against the Roman power. Thus he touched life at its lowest point, plunged into the stream of humanity where it was blackest.

Mar. 15:28. This verse is omitted in the Revised Version, not being found in the oldest manuscripts.

Mar. 15:29. They that passed by railed at him. The people going in and out of the city, on the thoroughfare near the place of crucifixion. Wagging their heads. Derisively and insultingly. Compare 2Ki. 19:21; Job. 16:4; Psa. 109:25. Thou that destroyest the temple. It is evident that the Lords saying (Joh. 2:19-21), or rather this perversion of it (for he claimed not to destroy but to rebuild the temple destroyed by them), had greatly exasperated the feelings which the priests and Pharisees had contrived to excite against him.

Mar. 15:30. Save thyself. This may be ironical, or it is a recognition of his miracles of mercy, to taunt him with a supposed loss of power just when he needed it most for himself. His very mercy is used in mockery.Schaff. If Christ had saved himself he could not have saved others.

Mar. 15:31. The chief priests. The chief priests, and scribes, and elders, less awestruck, less compassionate, than the mass of the people, were not ashamed to add their heartless reproaches to those of the evil few.

Mar. 15:32. Descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. A true index to their religious ideas. If they saw Him with their bodily eyes by a miracle come down from the cross, they would believe. Their religion rested on their five senses. The invisible spiritual power, in which Jesus taught, did his work, and founded his kingdom, had no existence for them. The only authority for their faith was what they could grasp with their hands, or see with their eyes.Geikie. They that were crucified with him reviled him, It is not certain whether both of the malefactors reviled him, or but one; Matthew and Mark speak of both; Luke of but one. Most, after Augustine, suppose that Matthew and Mark speak in general terms of them as a class of persons that joined in deriding Jesus, but without meaning to say that both actually derided him.

III.

THE EARTH DRAPED IN MOURNING.

Mar. 15:33. The sixth hour . . . there was darkness. This was no eclipse of the sun, for it was full moon at the timenor any partial obscuration of the sun such as sometimes takes place before an earthquakefor it is clear that no earthquake in the ordinary sense of the word is here intended. Those whose belief leads them to reflect Who was then suffering, will have no difficulty in accounting for these signs of sympathy in nature nor in seeing their applicability. The consent, in the same words, of all three evangelists, must silence all question as to the universal belief of this darkness as a fact; and the early Fathers appeal to the testimony of profane authors for its truth.Alford. Over the whole land. The darkness began at the sixth hour, or twelve A.M., and continued till the ninth, or three P.M. The forms of expression, over all the land, (Matthew), over the whole land, (Mark and Luke), do not determine how far the darkness extended. Many would confine it to the land of Judea as our version does.

Mar. 15:34. At the ninth hour. Three oclock; so far as appears, during the three hours of gloom the Lord was silent, and, doubtless, all were silent around him. My God, my God. The Savior here applies the holy psalm (Psalms 22) to himself as prophetic. The particular words are expressive of the divine abandonment, of the departure of the divine presence, as part of his atonement endurance. They are uttered by him to show that he is enduring an intolerable agony, deeper than any external infliction. The finest thing in all this dear history of Immanuel on the earth is exhibited just here. When he began his suffering on the cross, he said, Father; and when he reached its end he also said Father; but in the deep midnight of woe between them, he said My God, My God! Reasons for the forsaking: one is, God rejects sin, and sin was then laid on Jesus. Again, perhaps the almighty Father meant that Jesus should now fight the battle single-handed, in order that the glory of the final victory to be gained might be his own.Robinson.

Mar. 15:35. He calleth for Elias. The resemblance between the word Eli and the name Elijah is very close in the original. There is here an allusion to the belief that Elijah would come before the Messiah, and hence a sarcastic denial of his Messiahship. The words may have been imperfectly understood.

Mar. 15:36. Sponge full of vinegar. The vinegar is the posca, sour wine, or vinegar and water, the ordinary drink of the Roman soldiers. Put it on a reed. The reed is described by John as the hyssop.

Mar. 15:37. Cried with a loud voice. Emitting a great voice, not a mere cry, but an articulate, intelligible utterance, the words of which have been preserved by John (Joh. 19:30), and Luke (Luk. 23:46). Gave up the Ghost. A better translation is yielded up his spirit.

Mar. 15:38. The veil of the temple was rent. The great work of salvation was now, at last, completed; prophecy fulfilled; the ancient covenant at an end, the new inaugurated. Judaism was forever obsolete, and the holy of holies had ceased to be the peculiar presence chamber of Jehovah among men. Nor was a sign wanting that it was so, for the great veil of purple and goldsixty feet long and thirty broadbefore the inner sanctuary of the temple, suddenly rent itself in two from the top to the bottom at the moment of Christs death, as if he who had hitherto dwelt there had gone forth to lead up his eternal Son to his own right hand.Geikie.

Mar. 15:39. The centurion. An officer of the Roman answering to the captain in our own organization. He commanded a century, answering to our company, originally a hundred men, subsequently from fifty to a hundred. This man was the Son of God. Observe that he says not is but was a Son of God; evidently in his thought the death of Christ was the end. It is worth noticing that the cross had greater effect on the centurion, who had been before simply ignorant of and indifferent to Christ, than on the Pharisees.

FACT QUESTIONS 15:21-39

1104.

What two places are identified as the location of Calvary?

1105.

Give three Scriptural facts about Calvary.

1106.

Why do we reject the location chosen by the Roman Catholics?

1107.

Mention three other forms of capital punishment than crucifixion.

1108.

What was the Jewish opinion of crucifixion?

1109.

What did Cicero say about crucifixion?

1110.

It would help in our appreciation of what our Savior suffered for us if we were to attempt to rewrite in our own words what Johnson has given us from Farrar and Geikie. Try it.

1111.

How does Mat. 5:41 relate to Simon of Cyrene?

1112.

Where is Cyrene?

1113.

Do you agree with Johnson and Schaff that Jesus and Simon carried the cross?

1114.

The English word Calvary (Cf. Luk. 23:33) should not appear at allwhy not?

1115.

Why called the place of a skull?

1116.

The Talmud says there was a certain association of women in Jerusalemwhat was their work?

1117.

The refusal to drink the wine and myrrh indicated a desire to drink another cupwhat was it?

1118.

Describe and name the three types of crosses used in the days of our Lordwhich was used with our Lord?

1119.

Over what robe did the soldiers gamble? What did they use in casting lots?

1120.

Please notice how remarkable a prediction is Psa. 22:16. Remembercrucifixion was a Roman form of capital punishment.

1121.

Mark says the third hourJohn says it was the sixth hour. Cf. Joh. 19:14how reconcile these times?

1122.

No serious and sensible writer would dream of talking about a discrepancy in the different versions of the title on the crosswhy not?

1123.

The chief priests did not like the titlewhy not?

1124.

Show how Jesus touched life at its lowest point.

1125.

Why leave out Mar. 15:28? Isnt it true?

1126.

Why would some folks be passing by the scene of the crucifixion?

1127.

Was the expression save thyself ironical?

1128.

The men who lied when they told the truthwho were they? Cf. Mar. 15:31.

1129.

What shows a true index of the religious ideas of the chief-priests?

1130.

How does Augustine explain the thought that Mark says both thieves reviled Jesus?

1131.

How do we know the darkness was not an eclipse of the sun?

1132.

How account for the darkness? Was the darkness confined to Judea?

1133.

What is the finest thing in all this dear history of Immanuel?

1134.

What could have been a sarcastic denial of His Messiahship?

1135.

Did Jesus control His own death? i.e., choose the time His spirit would depart His body? Discuss.

1136.

Show how beautifully symbolic was the tearing of the temple veil.

1137.

Why did the death of Christ have more effect on the centurion than on the Pharisees?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(21) The father of Alexander and Rufus.The fact recorded here, and not elsewhere, is one of the most striking instances of the independent character of St. Marks Gospel. It is clear that it had a special interest for himself and the readers for whom he wrote; what that interest was we can only conjecture. The two names were so common that we cannot arrive at more than a probable identification, but the mention of a Rufus chosen in the Lord as prominent among the Christians of Rome (Rom. 16:13), taken together with the evidence which connects St. Marks Gospel with that Church (see Introduction), tends to the conclusion that he was one of the two brothers thus mentioned. But if so, then we are led on to some other facts of no slight interest. St. Paul speaks of the mother of Rufus as being also his motheri.e., endeared to him by many proofs of maternal kindnessand so we are led to the belief that the wife of Simon of Cyrene must, at some time or other, at Antioch or Corinth, and afterwards at Rome, have come within the inner circle of St. Pauls friends. This, in its turn, connects itself with the prominence given to men of Cyrene in St. Lukes account of the foundation of the Gentile Church of Antioch (Act. 11:20). (See Note on Mat. 27:20.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

(21-38) See Notes on Mat. 27:32-51.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

21. Simon a Cyrenian Cyrene was a distinguished city in northern Africa, in which, though consisting mostly of Greeks, a Jewish colony was located. Having much intercourse with Jerusalem, they maintained a regular synagogue at that city. Simon appears at this time to have been a resident, at any rate temporarily, either of Jerusalem or its adjacent country, inasmuch as it is from the country he is coming when he is so sadly met by the procession of our Lord’s executioners. Very probably he was known to be a favourer of Jesus, and for that reason was pressed into this cruel service. This probability is corroborated by the facts which we learn from the Acts of the Apostles, that a number of the early converts to Christianity were members of the Cyrenian synagogue. (Compare Act 2:10; Act 6:9; Act 11:19-20.) Mark says that he was father of Alexander and Rufus, names which appear to be favourably familiar to his Christian readers. Impressive to their hearts must have been the thought that their own father had borne the Saviour’s cross. If the tradition be true, that Mark wrote his Gospel at Rome, it is highly probable that the Rufus mentioned in Rom 16:13 was one of the sons here named. Bear his cross Probably the Saviour had fainted under the burden of the cross, and Simon was made to bear it entirely in his room or to share a part of its weight. Indeed, when we consider how large and heavy the beam of a cross must be to support at a height the body of a man, it seems impossible that the entire cross could have here been borne. Some have thought, with apparent truth, that it was but the cross-beam that was carried through the streets, as the indication and the token of shame.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to go with them that he might bear his cross.’

It was normal that the condemned man, in the middle of a square of four soldiers, should carry the crosspiece on which he was to be crucified to the place of execution. The accusation against him was written on a board carried ahead by a soldier, and the longest route to the execution site was taken so as to act as a warning to as many people as possible. The fact that help was sought demonstrated that Jesus had, at this stage in the process, having struggled on for some time, collapsed in exhaustion and was unable to carry it further. The extreme burden of the night followed by the treatment He had received had proved too much for His weakened body. Having got so far He could not physically go on without assistance.

But not a word of this is spoken by Mark. The fact is conveyed by the describing of someone who was compelled to assist. His name was Simon of Cyrene, and the fact that his son’s names are given indicates that they became well known Christians. The work that he was called on to do that night brought great blessing to his family, but he had no hint of that on that terrible night.

‘Coming from the country.’ This probably means from outside the city walls rather than from the fields. We do not know whether he was a Jew, a proselyte or a Gentile, but he was presumably from North Africa and probably in Jerusalem as a pilgrim. It may suggest that he was a late arrival, for those in Jerusalem for the Passover were not supposed to leave the city bounds on the day of the Passover feast. Alternately he might have been living in Jerusalem and have been a member of the Cyrenian synagogue. But there is probably intended to be a hint here that there was no help for Jesus from Jerusalem. It required an outsider.

‘Compel.’ The Roman soldiers had a right to impress someone to give assistance. They would simply tap his shoulder with a spear and he had no choice in the matter. This was a regular right of foreign conquerors.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Crucifixion and Burial of Jesus Mar 15:21-47 records the crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ.

Outline Here is a proposed outline:

1. The Crucifixion of Jesus Mar 15:21-32

2. The Death of Jesus Mar 15:33-41

3. The Burial of Jesus Mar 15:42-47

Mar 15:21-32 The Crucifixion of Jesus ( Mat 27:32-44 , Luk 23:26-43 , Joh 19:17-27 ) In Mar 15:21-32 we have the story of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are no ancient records that tell us exactly how many Jews were crucified by Rome. It may have been thousands, or tens of thousands. But it was the most horrible form of punishment that Rome gave to its enemies.

Crucifixion in the Ancient World – References to impalement and crucifixion in ancient history are too numerous to mention them all. These most cruel forms of punishment were used for perhaps a thousand years, from the sixth century B.C. by the Persians until fourth century A.D. when Constantine abolished its practice throughout the Roman Empire. Perhaps the earliest references to crucifixion and impalement as a form of capital punishments are recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 B.C.), who says the Persians practiced it against their enemies and other condemned of crimes. Although the Persians may have not have been the first to use this cruel form of punishment, they certainly appear to be the first to use it extensively. Herodotus makes numerous references to the Persian practice of impalement and crucifixion, with most gruesome event taking place when King Darius of Persian subdued the Babylonians a second time in 519 B.C. by crucifying three thousand chief men among them on one occasion (3.159). [134]

[134] “Crucifixion,” in Encyclopdia Britannica [on-line]; accessed December 21, 2011; available at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/144583/crucifixion; Internet.

“and with that he took the Magians who interpreted dreams and had persuaded him to let Cyrus go free, and impaled [ ] them.” ( Herodotus 1.128) [135]

[135] Herodotus I, trans. A. D. Godley, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, c1920, 1975), 167.

“Having killed him (in some way not worth the telling) Oroetes then crucified [ ] him.” ( Herodotus 3.125) [136]

[136] Herodotus II, trans. A. D. Godley, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, c1928), 155.

“When the Egyptian chirurgeons who had till now attended on the king were about to be impaled [ ] for being less skilful than a Greek, Democedes begged their lives of the king and saved them.” ( Herodotus 3.132) [137]

[137] Herodotus II, trans. A. D. Godley, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, c1928), 163.

“For he had raped the virgin daughter of Zopyrus son of Megabyzus; and when on this charge he was to be impaled [ ] by King XerxesBut Xerxes did not believe that Sataspes spoke truth, and as the task appointed Mas unfulfilled he impaled [ ] him, punishing him on the charge first brought against him.” ( Herodotus 4.43) [138]

[138] Herodotus II, trans. A. D. Godley, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, c1928), 241-243.

“Artaphrenes, viceroy of Sardis and Harpagus who had taken Histiaeus, impaled [ ] his body on the spot, and sent his head embalmed to king Darius at Susa.” ( Herodotus 6.30) [139]

[139] Herodotus III, trans. A. D. Godley, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, c1938), 175-177.

“Their captain was the viceroy from Cyme in Aeolia, Sandoces son of Thamasius; he had once before this, being then one of the king’s judges, been taken and crucified [ ] by Darius because he had given unjust judgment for a bribe.” ( Herodotus 7.194) [140]

[140] Herodotus III, trans. A. D. Godley, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, c1938), 511.

“Thus was Babylon the second time taken. Having mastered the Babylonians, Darius destroyed their walls and reft away all their gates, neither of which things Cvrus had done at the first taking of Babylon; moreover he impaled [ ] about three thousand men that were chief among them.” ( Herodotus 3.159) [141]

[141] Herodotus II, trans. A. D. Godley, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, c1928), 193-195.

The Greek historian Thucydides (460-396 B.C.) records the use of impalement during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) by the Persians, which suggests the introduction of this form of punishment to the Greek by the Persians.

“for the Persians were unable to capture him, both on account of the extent of the marsh and because the marsh people are the best fighters among the Egyptians. Inaros, however, the king of the Libyans, who had been the originator of the whole movement in Egypt, was taken by treachery and impaled.” ( Thucydides 1.110) [142]

[142] Thucydides, vol. 1, trans. Charles Forster Smith, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, c1956), 185.

The Greek general Alexander the Great adopted crucifixion as a form of punishment against his enemies in his conquests. The Roman historian Curtius Rufus (flourished A.D. 41-54) says Alexander the Great crucified two thousand citizens of Tyre along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea after having conquered them.

“Then a sorrowful spectacle to the victors caused by the wrath of the king, two thousand suffering (his) madness which were killed, fixed to a cross [crux] along the enormous distance of the seashore. He spared the ambassadors of the Carthaginians” (author’s translation) (Quintus Curtius Rufus , Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great 4.4.18) [143]

[143] Quintus Curtius Rufus, Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, trans. William Henry Crosby (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1969), 45.

The Romans adopted crucifixion into their judicial system. The Roman statesman Cicero (106-43 B.C.) describes crucifixion as the worst form of capital punishment that should be reserved for all but Roman citizens, and he condemns those Roman officials who performed it upon their own citizens.

“The Roman people will give credit to those Roman knights who, when they were produced as witnesses before you originally, said that a Roman citizen, one who was offering honourable men as his bail, was crucified by him in their sight.” (Cicero, Against Verrem 1.5) [144]

[144] C. D. Yonge, The Works of Philo Judaeus, the Contemporary of Josephus, vol. 1 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), 137.

“The punishments of Roman citizens are driving him mad, some of whom he has delivered to the executioner, others he has put to death in prison, others he has crucified while demanding their rights as freemen and as Roman citizens.” (Cicero, Against Verrem 2.1.3) [145]

[145] C. D. Yonge, The Works of Philo Judaeus, the Contemporary of Josephus, vol. 1 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), 154.

“I will produce, also, citizens of Cosa, his fellow-citizens and relations, who shall teach you, though it is too late, and who shall also teach the judges, (for it is not too late for them to know them,) that that Publius Gavius whom you crucified was a Roman citizen, and a citizen of the municipality of Cosa, not a spy of runaway slaves.” (Cicero, Against Verrem 2.5.63) [146]

[146] C. D. Yonge, The Works of Philo Judaeus, the Contemporary of Josephus, vol. 1 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), 535.

“Then you might remit some part of the extreme punishment. Did he not know him? Then, if you thought fit, you might establish this law for all people, that whoever was not known to you, and could not produce a rich man to vouch for him, even though he were a Roman citizen, was still to be crucified.” (Cicero, Against Verrem 2.5.65) [147]

[147] C. D. Yonge, The Works of Philo Judaeus, the Contemporary of Josephus, vol. 1 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), 537.

The Romans appear to have taken crucifixion to its fullest extent of torment. The Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnasus (60-7 B.C.) tells us that the Romans combined scourging and various forms of torture as a prerequisite to crucifixion.

“And straightway all those whom the informers declared to have been concerned in the conspiracy were either seized in their houses or brought in from the country, and after being scourged and tortured they were all crucified.” (Dionysius of Halicarnasus, Roman Antiquities 5.51.3) [148]

[148] Dionysius of Halicarnasus, The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnasus, vol. 3, trans. Earnest Cary, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, c1940), 153.

“When the plot was revealed, the ringleaders were arrested and after being scourged were led away to be crucified.” (Dionysius of Halicarnasus, Roman Antiquities 12.6.7) [149]

[149] Dionysius of Halicarnasus, The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnasus, vol. 7, trans. Earnest Cary, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, c1950), 221.

The Roman philosopher Seneca (4 B.C. to A.D. 65) tells us that the Romans experimented with a variety of methods for crucifying men in an effort to inflict maximum suffering.

“I see before me crosses not all alike, but differently made by different peoples: some hang a man head downwards, some force a stick upwards through his groin, some stretch out his arms on a forked gibbet.” ( Dialogues 6, To Marcia, On Consolations) [150]

[150] Aubrey Stewart, L. Anneaus Seneca: Minor Dialogues (London: George Bell and Sons, 1889), 192.

The Roman historian Appian (A. D. 95-165) tells us that the Roman general Crassus crucified six thousand men in 71 B.C. after crushing a slave rebellion led by Spartacus. He stretched these crosses along the main road leading to Rome so that everyone may see and fear the Romans. [151]

[151] William Bodham Donne, “Spartacus,” in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 3, ed. William Smith (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1849), 892.

“They divided themselves in four parts, and continued to fight until they all perished except 6000, who were captured and crucified along the whole road from Capua to Rome.” ( The Civil Wars 1.120) [152]

[152] Appian’s Roman History, vol. 3, trans. Horace White, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, 1964), 223-225.

The Assyrian satirist Lucian (A.D. 125-180) reflects the Roman’s passion for the most extreme forms of punishment in his work The Fisherman.

“But how are we to punish him, to be sure? Let us invent a complex death for him, such as to satisfy us all; in fact he deserves to die seven times over for each of us. PHILOSOPHER I suggest he be crucified. ANOTHER Yes, by Heaven; but flogged beforehand. ANOTHER Let him have his eyes put out long beforehand.. ANOTHER Let him have that tongue of his cut off, even longer beforehand.” (Lucian, The Fisherman 2) [153]

[153] Lucian, vol. 3, trans. A. M. Harmon, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, 1960), 5.

The Jewish historian Josephus (A.D. 37-100) makes many references to the Roman practice of crucifixion against the Jewish people. His description of the thousands of crucifixions that the Romans performed upon the Jews during the siege of Jerusalem is perhaps the most horrific of his many references.

“after they had fought, they thought it too late to make any supplications for mercy; so they were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures before they died, and were then crucified before the wall of the city. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them, while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they caught moreSo the soldiers out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest; when their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies.” (Josephus, Wars 5.11.1)

“Whereupon Eleazar besought them not to disregard him, now he was going to suffer a most miserable death, and exhorted them to save themselves, by yielding to the Roman power and good fortune, since all other people were now conquered by them.” (Josephus, Wars 7.6.4)

The Roman philosopher Seneca (4 B.C. to A.D. 65) gives one of the most vivid descriptions of what a person suffers during a crucifixion in ancient literature:

“But what sort of life is a lingering death? Can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all? Can any man by found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly tumors on chest and shoulders, and drawing the breath of life amid long drawn-out agony? I think he would have many excuses for dying even before mounting the cross!” ( Epistle 101.14). [154]

[154] Seneca, vol. 4 , Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, vol. 3, trans. Richard M. Gumere, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, 1971), 167.

The Roman jurist Julius Paulus (2 nd to 3 rd c. A.D.) considered crucifixion as the most extreme of all punishments.

“Every one should abstain not only from divination but also from the books teaching that science. If slaves consult a soothsayer with reference to the life of their master, they shall be subjected to extreme punishment, that is to say, to crucifixion; and if those who are consulted give any answer, they shall either be sentenced to the mines, or deported to an island.” ( The Civil Law 5.21.4) [155]

[155] S. P. Scott, The Civil Law (Cincinnati, Ohio: The Central Trust Company 1932) [on-line]; accessed 17 January 2011; available at http://webu2.upmf-grenoble.fr/Haiti/Cours/Ak/Anglica/Paul5_Scott.htm#21; Internet.

The legal reforms of Constantine led to the abolishment of crucifixion and replaced it more humane forms of capital punishment (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 4.26) ( PG 20, cols. 1173-1178). [156]

[156] Albert de Broglie, “The First Christian Emperors,” (130-190). in The Christian Remembrancer (vol. 50 July-Decemeber) (London: J. and C. Mozley, 1860), 169; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 3 (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891), 108.

Mar 15:21 Comments – There is only one other mention of a person named “Rufus” in the Scriptures, where Paul greets him as a citizen of Rome in his epistle to the church at Rome. Since Mark wrote his Gospel while in Rome, some scholars suggest that this occasioned Mark to mention this person’s name in his Gospel.

Rom 16:13, “Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine.”

Mar 15:24 Comments The ancient practice of casting lots was not restricted to the Jewish culture under the Mosaic Law. The books Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, and Nahum provide us with references in the Old Testament Scriptures to the custom of casting of lots by someone other than the people of Israel, being practiced among the Babylonians (Oba 1:11), the Ninevites (Nah 3:10), and among the sailors (Jon 1:7), which Adam Clarke suggests to be Phoenicians based on Eze 27:12. [157]

[157] Adam Clarke, The Book of the Prophet Jonah, in Adam Clarke’s Commentary, Electronic Database (Seattle, WA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 1996), in P.C. Study Bible, v. 3.1 [CD-ROM] (Seattle, WA: Biblesoft Inc., 1993-2000), notes on Jonah 1:3.

Joe 3:3, “And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.”

Oba 1:11, “In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.”

Nah 3:10, “Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.”

Jon 1:7, “And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.”

Eze 27:12, “Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.”

The Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus Christ cast lots at the foot of the Cross (Mat 27:35, Mar 15:24, Luk 23:34, Joh 19:24). The Roman statesman Cicero (106-43 B.C.) makes numerous references to the widespread practice of casting lots among the ancient cultures in his work de divination. [158] The Jewish historian Josephus (A.D. 37-100) mentions the practice of casting lots among the Roman soldiers who had encompassed the city of Jerusalem under Titus. [159] The Roman historian Suetonius (A.D. 70-130) mentions this ancient practice among Roman leaders by appointing men to tasks by casting lots, as well as casting lots as a form of divination. [160]

[158] For example, Cicero writes, “But what nation is there, or what state, which is not influenced by the omens derived from the entrails of victims, or by the predictions of those who interpret prodigies, or strange lights, or of augurs, or astrologers, or by those who expound lots (for these are about what come under the head of art); or, again, by the prophecies derived from dreams, or soothsayers (for these two are considered natural kinds of divination)?” ( de divination 1.6) Cicero also writes, “What, now, is a lot? Much the same as the game of mora, or dice, l and other games of chance, in which luck and fortune are all in all, and reason and skill avail nothing. These games are full of trick and deceit, invented for the object of gain, superstition, or error.” ( de divination 2.41) See Cicero, The Treatises of M. T. Cicero on the Nature of the Gods; on Divination; on Fate; on the Republic; on the Laws; and on Standing for the Consulship, trans. C. D. Yonge (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853), 146-147, 235.

[159] Josephus writes, “They also cast lots among themselves who should be upon the watch in the nighttime, and who should go all night long round the spaces that were interposed between the garrisons.” ( Wars 5.12.2)

[160] For example, Suetonius writes, “When later, on his way to Illyricum, he [Tiberius] visited the oracle of Geryon near Patavium, and drew a lot which advised him to seek an answer to his inquiries by throwing golden dice into the fount of Aponus, it came to pass that the dice which he threw showed the highest possible number and even to-day those very dice may be seen under the water.” ( Lives of the Twelve Caesars: Tiberius) Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, trans. Joseph Gavorse (New York: Modern Library, 1931), 130-131.

Mar 15:25 Comments For three hours, from 9:00 a.m. until noon, the people mocked Jesus as He hung on the Cross (Mar 15:29-32). We read of no mocking after darkness fell upon the earth from noon until His death at 3:00 p.m., perhaps because the people began to perceive the hand of Almighty God in this event.

Mar 15:26 Comments – It was a custom for a victim to have his crimes posted on a plaque above him during his crucifixion. We read in Mar 15:26 how Jesus had just such a superscription place above Him in order to identify Him with His crime.

Mar 15:33-41 The Death of Jesus ( Mat 27:45-56 , Luk 23:44-49 , Joh 19:28-30 ) In Mar 15:33-41 we have the account of the death of Jesus Christ.

Mar 15:33  And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

Mar 15:33 Comments – For three hours, from 9:00 a.m. until noon, the people mocked Jesus as He hung on the Cross (Mar 15:29-32). As darkness fell upon the earth from noon until His death at 3:00 p.m., the people ceased mocking as they began to perceive the hand of Almighty God in this event. For this reason, Joseph Prince suggests that Jesus Christ suffered at the hands of man for His first three hours upon the Cross, and He suffered under the hand of God for the final three hours. [161]

[161] Joseph Prince, Destined to Reign, on Lighthouse Television (Kampala, Uganda), television program, 9 May 2012.

Mar 15:34  And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Mar 15:34 “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani” Comments – These words are found in Psa 22:1. However, they are not spoken as the Hebrew original, but rather in the Aramaic version. Thus, this verse is evidence that Jesus spoke the Aramaic language during His earthly ministry.

Psa 22:1, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?”

Mar 15:34 “My God, my God” – Comments – Jesus did not say, “My Father,” as God had now become His Judge.

Mar 15:34 Comments After three hours of darkness, the Son of God spoke, crying out from the Cross with the same power that created the heavens and the earth. His words penetrated the darkness and brought it to an end, restoring light upon the world.

Jesus did not say, “My Father,” as God had now become His Judge on the Cross. Thus, He says, “My God, My God.” Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus referred to God as His Father. This is the first time that Jesus calls His Father “God.” It was at this time that God forsook His Son for a moment as Jesus felt the weight of the sins of mankind upon Him. Thus, Jesus testifies to the world by this statement that He was being judged for the sins of mankind as God forsook Him. Note these insightful words from Frances J. Roberts regarding this verse.

“I (Jesus) suffered in all ways as ye suffer, but ye shall never suffer as I suffered; for I experienced one awful moment of separation from the Father; but I have promised that I will never forsake thee, and I will never leave thee.” [162]

[162] Frances J. Roberts, Come Away My Beloved (Ojai, California: King’s Farspan, Inc., 1973), 170.

Finally, as Jesus was giving up His spirit, He again addresses His Father, saying, “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.” (Luk 23:46)

Mar 15:35  And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias.

Mar 15:35 Comments – The Hebrew phrase ( ) “My God,” and the name ( ) “Elijah,” meaning “YHWH is God,” are very close in pronunciation and sound. Thus, the bystanders could have easily heard the word “Elijah” by mistake.

Mar 15:42-47 The Burial of Jesus ( Mat 27:57-61 , Luk 23:50-56 , Joh 19:38-42 ) In Mar 15:42-47 we have the account of the burial of Jesus Christ.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Mar 15:21. The father of Alexander and Rufus In the note on Mat 27:32 we have observed, that these two persons were two noted men among the first Christians, who resided at Rome, and who being well known there, St. Mark makes this mention of them, on account of the Christians at Rome and others, who were acquainted with them or their names.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Mar 15:21 . See on Mat 27:32 . Comp. Luk 23:26 .

] See the critical remarks. On the future after , see Winer, p. 257 f. [E. T. 360 f.].

Only Mark designates Simon by his sons . Whether Alexander be identical with the person named at Act 19:33 , or with the one at 1Ti 1:20 , 2Ti 2:17 , or with neither of these two, is just as much a matter of uncertainty, as is the possible identity of Rufus with the person mentioned at Rom 16:13 . Mark takes for granted that both of them were known, hence they doubtless were Christians of mark; comp. Mar 10:46 . But how frequent were these names, and how many of the Christians that were at that time well known we know nothing of! As to ., see on Mat 5:41 . The notice , which Luke also, following Mark, gives (but not Matthew), is one of the traces which are left in the Synoptical narratives that the day of the crucifixion was not the first day of the feast (see on Joh 18:28 ). Comp. Bleek, Beitr. p. 137; Ebrard, p. 513. It is not, indeed, specified how far Simon had come from the country (comp. Mar 16:12 ) to the city, but there is no limitation added having reference to the circumstances of the festal Sabbath, so that the quite open and general nature of the remark, in connection with the other tokens of a work-day (Mar 15:42 ; Mar 15:46 ; Luk 23:56 ; Mat 27:59 f.), certainly suggests to us such a work-day. The being the Roman soldiers, there is the less room on the basis of the text for thinking, with Lange, of a popular jest , which had just laid hold of a Sabbath-breaker who happened to come up.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

(21) And, they compel one Simon, a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. (22) And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a scull. (23) And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not. (24) And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them what every man should take. (25) And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. (26) And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. (27) And with him they crucify two thieves, the one on his right hand, and the other on his left. (28) And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors. (29) And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, (30) Save thyself, and come down from the cross. (31) Likewise also the chief priests mocking, said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save. (32) Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and, believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him. (33) And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. (34) And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (35) And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias. (36) And one ran, and filled a spunge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take him down. (37) And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.

In the relation which John gives, of their leading away CHRIST to be crucified, he saith; that JESUS bearing his cross, went forth into a place, called the place of a skull. But the three other Evangelists tell us, that this Simon the, Cyrenian, they compelled to this labour. And no doubt, the relation by the whole is correct. For JESUS first went forth with it, but when they found him sinking under the burden, and fearing had he really died with fainting and loss of blood, before they arrived at Golgotha, their inhumanity would have lost the greatest triumph over him; they compelled the Cyrenian to bear the cross for him.

I beg to detain the Reader at this place, just to observe to him, what otherwise perhaps may not so immediately strike him, in tracing the unequalled sorrows of CHRIST, that it is not to be wondered at that the LORD JESUS should have fainted under the cross. For when we consider what he had already undergone of pain and fatigue, and loss of blood, and agonies, the only astonishment is, that he had not sunk under the pressure before. They who have studied the map of Jerusalem and its vicinity, and have marked the ground over which the LORD JESUS was hurried up and down from one place to another, have shewn that CHRIST actually walked the day of his Crucifixion, and the night immediately before it, many a mile, perhaps not less than seven, without rest or intermission. And add to these, the LORD JESUS, six days before the Passover visited Bethany, and was closely engaged every portion of the time, from that period to his death. Joh 12:1 . And Luke saith, that he abode in the Mount of Olives by night, and in the morning early the people came to hear him in the temple. Luk 21:37-38 . And from the moment of his being apprehended to his death, after all these fatigues and sufferings, there was no interval allowed for sleep. Well might the Prophet say, we have caused him to serve with our sins, and wearied him with our iniquities. Isa 43:24 . Oh! ye that are weary and heavy laden with sin! come to this wearied SAVIOR. He knows your feelings by his own!

In respect to the painful and ignominious death of the Cross, I refer to the observations made in the Commentary on Mat 27 . But in addition, I would just remark, that such were the cruelties exercised upon the occasion, that the malice of hell seems to have been at study, to make the whole the most aggravated and full of torture. Yet what I chiefly beg the Reader not to lose sight of, in beholding the Cross, is the wonderful coincidence of circumstances so over-ruled by the LORD, as that everything done to CHRIST, or suffered by CHRIST should have a mystical allusion, to the great design for which he offered his soul an offering for sin. Under this view of the subject, what but GOD’s sovereignty could have brought about such an event, that in their despising the offices of CHRIST, I mean his Priestly, Kingly, and Prophetical offices, they should have used the very same words, in which CHRIST complained of those reproaches, a thousand years before those events were accomplished. All they that see me (said CHRIST by the spirit of prophecy,) laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, he trusted on the LORD that he would deliver hint; let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him; Psa 22:7-8 . the Evangelists have recorded those very words, as among the taunts and reproaches of the multitude. The Reader will not fail, I hope to recollect, that the LORD of life and glory was then in very deed, saving his people from their sins by the gracious act of thus offering himself in sacrifice. And their testimony though very differently intended by them, was in fact overruled by the LORD to the same. He saved others, (said they) himself he cannot save.

Blessed Lamb of GOD! enable thy people to have these things, always in remembrance; and never, oh! never may we fail to connect with the view, the intimate concern thy Church and people all have in the wonderful events of this day. But for this thy gracious interposition, thy Church in every individual of it, must have been bound hand and foot, as JESUS was for them, and hurried away to the Judge. Silent as JESUS was; must we all have stood at that tremendous bar. And after sentence had been passed, hell in an army, would have seized upon us, and driven we must have been from the presence of GOD, into regions of endless despair. Oh! the unspeakable mercy of GOD in JESUS CHRIST.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

16 And the soldiers led him away into the hall, called Praetorium; and they call together the whole band.

17 And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head ,

18 And began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!

19 And they smote him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon him, and bowing their knees worshipped him.

20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him.

21 And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.

Ver. 21. And they compel one Simon ] , cogunt invitum. We all come off heavily, and shrink in the shoulder when called to carry the cross, as Peter did, Joh 21:18 .

The father of Alexander and Rufus ] Men famously known in the Church, and therefore here but named only. God will recompense even involuntary services.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

21. . ] It is quite uncertain whether Alexander be identical with either of the persons of that name mentioned Act 19:33 ; 1Ti 1:20 ; 2Ti 4:14 , or whether those, or any two of them represent one and the same person. There is a Rufus saluted Rom 16:13 . The words . . determine nothing as to its being a working day or otherwise, any more than , Mat 27:39 : nothing is said as to the distance from whence he came.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mar 15:21-26 . The crucifixion (Mat 27:32-37 , Luk 23:26 ; Luk 23:33-38 ).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mar 15:21 . : on this word vide on Mat 5:41 . : this detail in Mk. and Lk. has been taken as an unintentional hint that the crucifixion took place a day earlier than the synoptical statements imply. Coming from the country, i.e. , from his work. But even Holtzmann, H. C., disallows the inference: “as if nine in the morning were evening after work time, and in Mar 16:12 meant ploughing or reaping”. ., .: these names imply interest in the persons referred to within the circle of Mk.’s first readers, presumably well-known Christians. Rufus in Rom 16:13 ? Alexander in Act 19:33 ?

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mark

THE DEATH WHICH GIVES LIFE

SIMON THE CYRENIAN

Mar 15:21 .

How little these soldiers knew that they were making this man immortal! What a strange fate that is which has befallen chose persons in the Gospel narrative, who for an instant came into contact with Jesus Christ. Like ships passing athwart the white ghostlike splendour of 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.

This man Simon, fortuitously, as men say, meeting the little procession at the gate of the city, for an instant is caught in the radiance of the light, and stands out visible for evermore to all the world; and then sinks into the blackness, and we know no more about him. This brief glimpse tells us very little, and yet the man and his act and its consequences may be worth thinking about.

He was a Cyrenian; that is, he was a Jew by descent, probably born, and certainly resident, for purposes of commerce, in Cyrene, on the North African coast of the Mediterranean. No doubt he had come up to Jerusalem for the Passover; and like very many of the strangers who flocked to the Holy City for the feast, met some difficulty in finding accommodation in the city, and so was obliged to go to lodge in one of the outlying villages. From this lodging he is coming in, in the morning, knowing nothing about Christ nor His trial, knowing nothing of what he is about to meet, and happens to see the procession as it is passing out of the gate. He is by the centurion impressed to help the fainting Christ to carry the heavy Cross. He probably thought Jesus a common criminal, and would resent the task laid upon him by the rough authority of the officer in command. But he was gradually touched into some kind of sympathy; drawn closer and closer, as we suppose, as he looked upon this dying meekness; and at last, yielded to the soul-conquering power of Christ.

Tradition says so, and the reasons for supposing that it was right may be very simply stated. The description of him in our text as ‘the father of Alexander and Rufus’ shows that, by the time when Mark wrote, his two sons were members of the Christian community, and had attained some eminence in it. A Rufus is mentioned in the salutations in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, as being ‘elect in the Lord,’ that is to say, ‘eminent,’ and his mother is associated in the greeting, and commended as having been motherly to Paul as well as to Rufus. Now, if we remember that Mark’s Gospel was probably written in Rome, and for Roman Christians, the conjecture seems a very reasonable one that the Rufus here was the Rufus of the Epistle to the Romans. If so, it would seem that the family had been gathered into the fold of the Church, and in all probability, therefore, the father with them.

Then there is another little morsel of possible evidence which may just be noticed. We find in the Acts of the Apostles, in the list of the prophets and teachers in the Church at Antioch, a ‘Simon, who is called Niger’ that is, black, the hot African sun having tanned his countenance, perhaps, and side by side with him one ‘Lucius of Cyrene,’ from which place we know that several of the original brave preachers to the Gentiles in Antioch came. It is possible that this may be our Simon, and that he who was the last to join the band of disciples during the Master’s life and learned courage at the Cross was among the first to apprehend the world-wide destination of the Gospel, and to bear it beyond the narrow bounds of his nation.

At all events, I think we may, with something like confidence, believe that his glimpse of Christ on that morning and his contact with the suffering Saviour ended in his acceptance of Him as his Christ, and in his bearing in a truer sense the Cross after Him.

And so I seek now to gather some of the lessons that seem to me to arise from this incident.

I. First, the greatness of trifles.

If Simon had started from the little village where he lodged 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, or if the centurion’s eye had not chanced to alight on him in the crowd, or if the centurion’s fancy had picked out somebody else to carry the Cross, then all his life would have been different. And so it is always. You go down one turning rather than another, and your whole career is coloured thereby. You miss a train, and you escape death. Our lives are like the Cornish rocking stones, pivoted on little points. The most apparently insignificant things have a strange knack of suddenly developing unexpected consequences, and turning out to be, not small things at all, but great and decisive and fruitful.

Let us then look with ever fresh wonder on this marvellous contexture of human life, and on Him that moulds it all to His own perfect purposes. Let us bring the highest and largest principles to bear on the smallest events and circumstances, for you can never tell which of these is going to turn out a revolutionary and formative influence in your life. And if the highest Christian principle is not brought to bear upon the trifles, depend upon it, it will never be brought to bear upon the mighty things. The most part of every life is made up of trifles, and unless these are ruled by the highest motives, life, which is divided into grains like the sand, will have gone by, while we are waiting for the great events which we think worthy of being regulated by lofty principles. ‘Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.’

Look after the trifles, for the law of life is like that which is laid down by the Psalmist about the Kingdom of Jesus Christ: ‘There shall be a handful of corn in the earth,’ a little seed sown in an apparently ungenial place ‘on the top of the mountains.’ Ay! but this will come of it, ‘The fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon,’ and the great harvest of benediction or of curse, of joy or of sorrow, will come from the minute seeds that are sown in the great trifles of our daily life.

Let us learn the lesson, too, of quiet confidence in Him in whose hands the whole puzzling, overwhelming mystery lies. If a man once begins to think of how utterly incalculable the consequences of the smallest and most commonplace of his deeds may be, how they may run out into all eternity, and like divergent lines may enclose a space that becomes larger and wider the further they travel; if, I say, a man once begins to indulge in thoughts like these, it is difficult for him to keep himself calm and sane at all, unless he believes in the great loving Providence that lies above all, and shapes the vicissitude and mystery of life. We can leave all in His hands-and if we are wise we shall do so-to whom great and small are terms that have no meaning; and who looks upon men’s lives, not according to the apparent magnitude of the deeds with which they are filled, but simply according to the motive from which, and the purpose towards which, these deeds were done.

II. Then, still further, take this other lesson, which lies very plainly here-the blessedness and honour of helping Jesus Christ.

If we turn to the story of the Crucifixion, in John’s Gospel, we find that the narratives of the three other Gospels are, in some points, supplemented by it. In reference to our Lord’s bearing of the Cross, we are informed by John that when He left the judgment hall He was carrying it Himself, as was the custom with criminals under the Roman law. The heavy cross was laid on the shoulder, at the intersection of its arms and stem, one of the arms hanging down in front of the bearer’s body, and the long upright trailing behind.

Apparently our Lord’s physical strength, sorely tried by a night of excitement and the hearings in the High priest’s palace and before Pilate, as well as by the scourging, was unequal to the task of carrying, albeit for that short passage, the heavy weight. And there is a little hint of that sort in the context. In the verse before my text we read, ‘They led Jesus out to crucify Him,’ and in the verse after, ‘they bring,’ or bear ‘Him to the place Golgotha,’ as if, when the procession began, they led Him, and before it ended they had to carry Him, His weakness having become such that He Himself could not sustain the weight of His cross or of His own enfeebled limbs. So, with some touch of pity in their rude hearts, or more likely with professional impatience of delay, and eager to get their task over, the soldiers lay hold of this stranger, press him into the service and make him carry the heavy upright, which trailed on the ground behind Jesus. And so they pass on to the place of execution.

Very reverently, and with few words, one would touch upon the physical weakness of the Master. Still, it does not do us any harm to try to realise how very marked was the collapse of His physical nature, and to remember that that collapse was not entirely owing to the pressure upon Him of the mere fact of physical death; and that it was still less a failure of His will, or like the abject cowardice of some criminals who have had to be dragged to the scaffold, and helped up its steps; but that the reason why His flesh failed was very largely because there was laid upon Him the mysterious burden of the world’s sin. Christ’s demeanour in the act of death, in such singular contrast to the calm heroism and strength of hundreds who have drawn all their heroism and strength from Him, suggests to us that, looking upon His sufferings, we look upon something the significance of which does not lie on the surface; and the extreme pressure of which is to be accounted for by that blessed and yet solemn truth of prophecy and Gospel alike-’The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.’

But, apart from that, which does not enter properly into my present contemplations, let us remember that 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. There are many men in this day who scoff at Him, mock Him, deny His claims, seek to cast Him down from His throne, rebel against His dominion. It is an easy thing to be a disciple, when all the crowd is crying ‘Hosanna!’ It is a much harder thing to be a disciple when the crowd, or even when the influential cultivated opinion of a generation, is crying ‘Crucify Him! crucify Him!’ And some of you Christian men and women have to learn the lesson that if you are to be Christians you must be Christ’s companions when His back is at the wall as well as when men are exalting and honouring Him, that it is your business to confess Him when men deny Him, to stand by Him when men forsake Him, to avow Him when the avowal is likely to bring contempt upon you from some people, and thus, in a very real sense, to bear His Cross after Him. ‘Let us go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach’;-the tail end of His Cross, which 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.

I do not dwell upon the lesson often drawn from this story, as if it taught us to ‘take up our cross daily and follow Him.’ That is another matter, and yet is closely connected with that about which I speak; but what I say is, Christ’s Cross has to be carried to-day; and if we have not found out that it has, let us ask ourselves if we are Christians at all. There will be hostility, alienation, a comparative coolness, and absence of a full sense of sympathy with you, in many people, if you are a true Christian. You will come in for a share of contempt from the wise and the cultivated of this generation, as in all generations. The mud that is thrown after the Master will spatter your faces too, to some extent; and if you are walking with Him you will be, to the extent of your communion with Him, objects of the aversion with which many men regard Him. Stand to your colours. Do not be ashamed of Him in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

And there is yet another way in which this honour of helping the Lord is given to us. As in His weakness He needed some one to aid Him to bear His Cross, so in His glory He needs our help to carry out the purposes for which the Cross was borne. The paradox of a man’s carrying the Cross of Him who carried the world’s burden is repeated in another form. He needs nothing, and yet He needs us. He needs nothing, and yet He needed that ass which was tethered at ‘the place where two ways met,’ in order to ride into Jerusalem upon it. He does not need man’s help, and yet He does need it, and He asks for it. And though He bore Simon the Cyrenian’s sins ‘in His own body on the tree,’ He needed Simon the Cyrenian to help Him to bear the tree, and He needs us to help Him to spread throughout the world the blessed consequences of that Cross and bitter Passion. So to us all is granted the honour, and from us all are required the sacrifice and the service, of helping the suffering Saviour.

III. Another of the lessons which may very briefly be drawn from this story is that of the perpetual recompense and record of the humblest Christian work.

There were different degrees of criminality, and different degrees of sympathy with Him, if I may use the word, in that crowd that stood round the Master. The criminality varied from the highest degree of violent malignity in the Scribes and Pharisees, down to the lowest point of ignorance, and therefore all but entire innocence, on the part of the Roman legionaries, who were merely the mechanical instruments of the order given, and stolidly ‘watched Him there,’ with eyes which saw nothing.

On the other hand, there were all grades of service and help and sympathy, from the vague emotions of the crowd who beat their breasts, and the pity of the daughters of Jerusalem, or the kindly-meant help of the soldiers, who would have moistened the parched lips, to the heroic love of the women at the Cross, whose ministry was not ended even with His life. But 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.

Besides these results, service for Christ is recompensed, as in the instance before us, by a perpetual memorial. How little Simon knew that ‘wherever in the whole world this gospel was preached, there also, this that he had done should be told for a memorial of him! ‘ How little he understood when he went back to his rural lodging that night, that he had written his name high up on the tablet of the world’s memory, to be legible for ever. Why, men have fretted their whole lives away to win what this man won, and knew nothing of-one line in the chronicle of fame.

So we may say, it shall be always, ‘I will never forget any of their works.’ We may not leave our deeds inscribed in any records that men can read. What of that, If they are written in letters of light in the ‘Lamb’s Book of Life,’ to be read out by Him before His Father and the holy angels, in that last great day? We may not leave any separable traces of our services, any more than the little brook that comes down some gulley on the hillside flows separate from its sisters, with whom it has coalesced, in the bed of the great river, or in the rolling, boundless ocean, What of that so long as the work, in its consequences, shall last? Men that sow some great prairie broadcast cannot go into the harvest-field and say, ‘I sowed the seed from which that ear came, and you the seed from which this one sprang.’ But the waving abundance belongs to them all, and each may be sure that his work survives and is glorified there,-’that he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.’ So a perpetual remembrance is sure for the smallest Christian service.

IV. The last lesson that I would draw is, let us learn from this incident the blessed results of contact with the suffering Christ.

Simon the Cyrenian apparently knew nothing about Jesus Christ when the Cross was laid on his shoulders. He would be reluctant to undertake the humiliating task, and would plod along behind Him for a while, sullen and discontented, but by degrees be touched by more of sympathy, and get closer and closer to the Sufferer. And if he stood by the Cross when it was fixed, and saw all that transpired there, no wonder if, at last, after more or less protracted thought and search, he came to understand who He was that he had helped, and to yield himself to Him wholly.

Yes! dear brethren, Christ’s great saying, ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me,’ began to be fulfilled when He began to be lifted up. The centurion, the thief, this man Simon, by looking on the Cross, learned the Crucified.

And it is the only way by which any of us will ever learn the true mystery and miracle of Christ’s great and loving Being and work. I beseech you, take your places there behind Him, near His Cross; gazing upon Him till your hearts melt, and you, too, learn that He is your Lord, and your Saviour, and your God. The Cross of Jesus Christ divides men into classes as the Last Day will. It, too, parts men-’sheep’ to the right hand, ‘goats’ to the left. If there was a penitent, there was an impenitent thief; if there was a convinced centurion, there were gambling soldiers; if there were hearts touched with compassion, there were mockers who took His very agonies and flung them in His face as a refutation of His claims. On the day when that Cross was reared on Calvary it began to be what it has been ever since, and is at this moment to every soul who hears the Gospel, ‘a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.’ Contact with the suffering Christ will either bind you to His service, and fill you with His Spirit, or it will harden your hearts, and make you tenfold more selfish-that is to say, ‘tenfold more a child of hell’-than you were before you saw and heard of that divine meekness of the suffering Christ. Look to Him, I beseech you, who bears what none can help Him to carry, the burden of the world’s sin. Let Him bear yours, and yield to Him your grateful obedience, and then take up your cross daily, and bear the light burden of self-denying service to Him who has borne the heavy load of sin for you and all mankind.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mar 15:21

21They pressed into service a passer-by coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene (the father of Alexander and Rufus), to bear His cross.

Mar 15:21 “pressed into service” This is a Persian loan word used of official confiscation of property or conscription of workers for governmental use.

NASB”a passer-by coming from the country”

NKJV”as he was coming out of the country”

NRSV”a passer-by, who was coming in from the country”

TEV”who was coming into the city from the country”

NJB”a passer-by. . .who was coming from the country”

Does this imply a person now living in Palestine or a visitor to the Passover? I think it refers to a pilgrim who was housed in the suburbs of Jerusalem who just happened to be walking by at the time. However, there were many from Cyrenaica (i.e., North Africa) who lived in Jerusalem. There was even a special synagogue for them (cf. Act 6:9). His children are mentioned who apparently were known by the early church (not in Jerusalem, but in Rome).

“Simon of Cyrene” Cyrenaica was a province of North Africa. Cyrene was its capital. However, the name Simon is a Jewish name. We learn from Acts that there were many Jews from this area (cf. Act 2:10; Act 6:9; Act 11:20; Act 13:1). His racial identity is uncertain. There were black Jews from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba’s day (i.e., Ethiopia).

“the father of Alexander and Rufus” Obviously this specific description implies that Simon and/or his children became well known in the early church. Since Mark is written to Romans possibly the Rufus in Rom 16:13 is the same man.

“cross” There are several possible shapes used by the Romans, T, X, t, or a scaffold holding several vertical beams. All of these shapes have been found by archaeological research as being used in first century Palestine.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

compel. See note on Mat 27:32.

passed by = was passing by.

out of = away from. Greek. apo. App-104. Not the same word as in Mar 15:46.

the country = a field.

Rufus. This may be the Rufus of Rom 16:1 Rom 16:3.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

21. . ] It is quite uncertain whether Alexander be identical with either of the persons of that name mentioned Act 19:33; 1Ti 1:20; 2Ti 4:14, or whether those, or any two of them represent one and the same person. There is a Rufus saluted Rom 16:13. The words . . determine nothing as to its being a working day or otherwise, any more than , Mat 27:39 : nothing is said as to the distance from whence he came.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mar 15:21. , coming) either in order to be present at the Passover, or in order to see what would be done to Jesus.- ) Where perhaps he had his home. Happy man, in that he was not present, and had no part in the accusation: but in consequence of that very fact he was the less agreeable to the Jews.- , of Alexander and Rufus) These two, at the time when Mark wrote, were better known than their father, inasmuch as he is denominated from them [instead of vice vars]: They were distinguished persons among the disciples (see Rom 16:13 as to Rufas, who also is set down in that passage as one better known than his mother, though Paul seems to have regarded her as his mother at Jerusalem): which is an evidence whereby the truth of the whole fact, as it happened, may be perceived.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Rufus

It is possible that this may be the same Rufus mentioned in Rom 16:13.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

Bearing Christs Cross

And they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to go with them, that he might bear his cross.Mar 15:21.

Art and legend have done not a little to fill up the pathetic picture for us of our Lords carrying His cross to Calvary. But the Evangelists have not been altogether silent on the subject. Doubtless much occurred on the way which the Christian world would gladly have known, and which they could so well have told us. Two of them at least, St. Matthew and St. John, were in all probability eye and ear witnesses; and St. Mark and St. Luke must have often heard Apostles and others, for whom the day of Jesus death would have an imperishable memory, telling of all they had that day seen and heard. Yet how sparing of incidents they have been except where their Master was specially concerned. St. John, at any rate, who was a witness of the trial in Caiaphas house, was not likely to have been absent from the crowd that saw his Master going with His burden of shame to the place where He was to die. He must have been a keen and deeply interested observer of all that took place on the way. He must have had incidents and impressions of the scene stored up in his mind and memory which he would retain to his dying day, and which the Church would willingly have possessed. But from him we have not even one. He has nothing to add to what the other three Evangelists have given. Each of those three has preserved for us the story of Simon of Cyrene, and of his touching service to Jesus; the third, the Evangelist St. Luke, has added that of the weeping of the women. These two incidents are all that are recorded of a scene on which the Christian imagination has ever fondly dwelt.

The Evangelists have told their story as honest, simple minded men to whom the truth was dearer than their lives. There is nothing more marked than the contrast between their rapid, and sometimes bare, mention of facts and the string of legends, piled up with miraculous events, of other writers. Here, at this tragic stage of the progress to Calvary, was an opportunity, had they wished it, of intensifying the drama by giving prominence to the touching picture of this unknown Simon and Christ. But no, the central figure to them is Christ; they are too eager to follow Him to the end to think of pausing by the way. From their ample stores of knowledge and experience they have selected just what was needed to fulfil their great purpose in writing, which was to lift up Christ crucified, worthily and as He really was, to the view of the world through all ages.

Have you ever thought what a number of people there are whose names we know, and in whom we are interested, but of whom we should never have heard if they had not had something to do with Christ? At this time of day, the names of kings and governors, say of Herod and Pontius Pilate, might indeed have been known to a few scholars and students, but who outside of the circle of the learned would have known of their existence save for the fact that they crossed Christs path? Even men and women who made a great stir in their own day would have been utterly forgotten if it had not been that their names are mentioned along with that of Christ, or along with those of His Apostles. But of course this strikes us more when we think of those people who were quite obscure, and who led quite unnoticed lives in their own generation, but whose names are embalmed in the Gospel history, and who, though never heard of during their lifetime outside their native town or their small circle of friends, are quite well known now over the whole Christian world. Is it not strange that we to-day should be interesting ourselves in a humble man belonging to a town in the north of Africa, who lived nearly two thousand years ago, and all because, by what seems the merest accident, he happened to meet Christ on the way to Calvary, and was forced to carry His cross for a few minutes in the hot noontide sun?1 [Note: E. B. Speirs.]

We may consider the subject in three parts

I.Simon the Cross-Bearer

II.Christ the Sin-Bearer

III.Simon and Christ

I

Simon the Cross-Bearer

i. Simon the Cyrenian

Who was he? What does history tell us about him? Beyond his name, the name of his native town, the name of his two sons, and this one fact that he helped to carry Christs cross, we know absolutely nothing, at least with any certainty, of this man Simon; and yet that little is quite enough to make him interesting to us.

1. Cyrene received a Jewish settlement in the time of Ptolemy I., and the Jews formed an influential section of the inhabitants. At Jerusalem the name of Cyrene was associated with one of the synagogues (Act 6:9), and Jewish inhabitants of Cyrenaica were among the worshippers at the Feast of Pentecost in the year of the Crucifixion (Act 2:10), whilst a Lucius of Cyrene appears among the prophets and teachers of the Church of Antioch about a.d. 48 (Act 13:1). Whether this Simon had become a resident at Jerusalem, or whether he was a visitor at the Passover, it is impossible to decide. St. Mark alone further describes him as the father of Alexander and Rufus.

2. This additional statement of St. Mark adds greatly to our interest. He speaks of the sons, Alexander and Rufus, as if they were well-known disciples of the Lord; and St. Paul, in his greetings to the Christians at Rome from Corinth, sends special words of love to Rufus and his mother, who had acted in a peculiarly tender and motherly manner to him: Salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine.

Some, too, have thought that Symeon, surnamed Niger, might be identified with the cross-bearer of Christfor Symeon and Simon are the same nameand he is noticed with Lucius of Cyrene as one of the prophets and teachers in the Church at Antioch. If this were true, he would assume the new name of Christian, which we know originated in that city. Well might Simon extol the strange arrangement of Providence which brought him to the place where he should meet Jesus, at the very time when they were leading Him out to be crucified. Well might he bless the rough violence of the Roman soldiers, who compelled him to bear the cross for his weary and fainting Master. The bondage of man proved to him the liberty of Christ; the shame of earth turned into the glory of heaven. How grateful must he have felt afterwards that he had this unique honour; that it was given to him to alleviate in some small degree the unparalleled sufferings of his adorable Redeemerto share with Him the ignominy and the degradation of the cross. When he was afterwards called by the name of Christ at Antioch, he could indeed clothe himself with the shame of the cross as with a royal robe, and say with the great Apostle of the Gentiles, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

3. Imagination helps us to fill in what tradition tells us about this victim of brutal power who was compelled to take part in the crucifixion of the Saviour. He may have been a proselyte who had come all the way from Africa to observe the Feast of the Passover at Jerusalem. He had, perhaps, never previously heard of Jesus of Nazareth, and was not thinking of Him at the time when he saw Him on the way to execution. Probably, instead of pitying the sad case of the Sufferer beside him, he was occupied with the hardship of his own case, and filled with resentment on account of the odious service so ruthlessly exacted of him, including even Jesus in his indiscriminate wrath. But forced, in spite of himself, to accompany our Lord to Calvary, bearing the hated cross, he was made a witness of all the memorable incidents of the transcendent tragedy that took place there. He saw the Divine meekness and patience of the Sufferer; he heard the wonderful words of love and pardoning mercy that flowed from His lips; he beheld the supernatural darkness gathering round the cross, and felt the ground trembling under his feet; and, dismayed by these awful portents, he heard the loud cry with which Jesus gave up the ghost. And when the darkness cleared away, he saw the centurion transfixed with awe before the central cross, glorifying God, and exclaiming, Truly this was the Son of God. All this could not but have deeply impressed the mind of Simon. He must have learned enough in the brief companionship of a few hours with the Prince of Sufferersin such unexampled circumstancesto change the current of his whole life. He must have been one of the first who were drawn to Christ when lifted up upon the cross in fulfilment of His own words. Coming to Jerusalem to keep the Passover, he found in the cross of Christ the true fulfilment of the great historical rite; he found in that dying life a perfect example, and in that death an atoning sacrifice. Simon of Cyrene, the cross-bearer of Christ, was the first-fruits of Africa to Christianity.

From all thou holdest precious, for one hour

Arise and come away,

And let the calling Voice be heard in power;

Desert thyself to-day;

If with thy Lord for once thou turn aside,

With Him thoult fain abide.1 [Note: J. E. A. Brown.]

ii. A Forced Disciple

1. The Chance Meeting.It was the time of the great Passover feast, and Simon, no doubt, had come all the way from his busy and beautiful town in North Africa to keep, like a pious Jew, the sacred festival in the holy city. At such seasons Jerusalem was always densely crowded, and many of the pilgrims who could not get lodgings in the city itself stayed in the huts and booths which were erected on the hills or in the valleys outside, or put up in some of the quiet villages like Bethany, which were within easy reach of the capital, and, above all, of the Temple. Simon had either not been in the city the night before, and so had not heard of the arrest and trial of the prophet from Nazareth, which had caused such excitement amongst those there, or else, if he did know of it, he cared so little about it that he was not in the slightest hurry to get back to Jerusalem and hear the news. He was walking quietly and leisurely towards the town, ignorant of, or utterly uninterested in, the tragic events which were happening there, knowing nothing of the Nazarene, and not troubling himself about His guilt or His innocence, when his attention was arrested by the approach of a strange procession. He had no doubt seen executions before, but there was something about this procession which roused his curiosity. The soldiers marching by the side of the malefactors, who bore their crosses fastened to their shoulders, the rabble who followed after, were no strange sights to a man from a big and busy town like Cyrene; but Simon had never before seen scribes and priests and doctors of the law demeaning themselves to join the riff-raff, who were always ready for a days enjoyment of this sort. He had never before heard criminals followed by such fierce shouts of Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him! Crucify him! He had never before seen a long string of women bringing up the rear of such a dead march, and giving way to their grief in bitter weeping and loud lamentations.

Just as the crowd comes close to him there is a sudden pause. One of the prisoners falls beneath the weight of His cross, and Simon comes near to look at Him. The officer, seeing that it is useless to force the fallen King of the Jews to carry His load farther, casts his eye on the stranger, and struck, perhaps, by his stalwart appearance, and seeing doubtless that he was but a common man, orders the soldiers to seize him, and to bind the cross of the Nazarene on his shoulders.

And so Simon meets with Jesus. Was it chance? Do we say, What a singular providence that this stranger should have arrived just at the nick of time to meet the procession, and to take so prominent and unpremeditated a part in it? It was the same wonderful coincidence that the funeral procession at Nain should be passing through the gate at the very moment when Jesus and His disciples were entering in. How often do events, upon which the whole course of our natural and of our spiritual life turns, seem to hang upon trifles! The Providence of God arranges not only the great, but also the small, occurrences of human life and destiny.

If Simon 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, or if the centurions eye had not chanced to alight on him in the crowd, or if the centurions fancy had picked out somebody else to carry the cross, then all his life would have been different. And so it is always. You go down one turning rather than another, and your whole career is coloured thereby. You miss a train and you escape death. Our lives are like the Cornish rocking stones, pivoted on little points. The most apparently insignificant things have a strange knack of suddenly developing unexpected consequences, and turning out to be, not small things at all, but great and decisive and fruitful.

Let us look with ever fresh wonder on this marvellous contexture of human life, and on Him that moulds it all to His own perfect purposes. Let us bring the highest and largest principles to bear on the smallest events and circumstances, for we can never tell which of these is going to turn out a revolutionary and formative influence in our life. And if the highest Christian principle is not brought to bear upon the trifles, it will never be brought to bear upon the mighty things. The most part of every life is made up of trifles, and unless these are ruled by the highest motives, life, which is divided into grains like the sand, will have gone by, while we are preparing for the big events which we think worthy of being regulated by lofty principles. Look after the trifles, for the law of life is like that which is laid down by the Psalmist about the Kingdom of Jesus Christ: There shall be a handful of corn in the earth, a little seed sown in an apparently ungenial place on the top of the mountains. Yes! but what will come of it? The fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon. The great harvest of benediction or of curse, of joy or of sorrow, will come from the minute seeds that are sown in the great trifles of our daily life.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

2. Compelled to bear the Cross.They compel one Simon to go with them that he might bear his cross. The question at once presents itself, By what right, from what cause, did they seize on this stray traveller and force him into the degrading position of bearing this shameful cross? For let it be remembered that then it was a shameful cross. What is now our ornament and pride, the symbol of all that is worthiest in man and divinest in God, was then the badge of shame and lowest degradation. So that it was an outrage and an insult of the very last degree that was inflicted on Simon the Cyrenian when they compelled him to bear the cross of Jesus Christ. The vilest of that howling Jewish mob would have shrunk from touching it, it would have been pollution; while the lowest Roman soldier would have regarded bearing a cross as an unspeakable degradation. Then how came they, how dared they, inflict this insult on Simon the Cyrenian? Was it the swarthy hue, the dusky complexion, the slave mark on skin or dress, which singled him out as one who might be safely wronged? This seems to be the most probable opinion, for Simon was a Cyrenian, that is, a native of North Africa, and though we may not, perhaps, say positively he was a man of colour, yet there might be enough to mark him out the slave. Was it for that reason they dared to inflict on him this wanton insult, and compelled him to bear the cross of the doomed Nazarene?

When Cyrus, the Persian king, conquered Palestine, he introduced into it several of the customs of his own country. One of the most remarkable of these was what might be called the postal service, which forwarded the messages of the government to all parts of the land. It was called the Angareion, from a Tartar word which means compulsory work without pay. Herodotus gives an interesting account of this custom; from which we learn that, in order to transmit messages with the utmost possible speed, relays of men and horses were kept ready at intervals along the principal roads, which handed on the despatches from one to another without pause or interruption, whatever might be the inclemency of the weather, and by night as well as by day. Such mounted couriers were further empowered to press into the service, should it be found necessary, additional men and horses, even if they had to leave their own work in the field for the purpose; and boats, if they had to cross a river or an arm of the sea. It can easily be imagined that such a system could be used by a government as an engine of oppression; and the people who were compelled to render this gratuitous service, often at very inconvenient times, and at great risk and loss to themselves, would doubtless feel very keenly the injustice of it. In Palestine it was greatly disliked, for, besides its own inherent evils, it had the additional one of being a foreign custom imposed upon a conquered people. The Tartar word for this disagreeable labour, having been introduced into the language of the Jews, came to be identified by them with every oppressive service. Our Lord used this peculiar word when He laid down the duty of self-denial and goodwill, even towards those who act oppressively towards us. And whosoever shall compel theeas the mounted courier compels the farmers and labourers along the way to help him in forwarding the despatches of the governmentwhosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. And here in the text the word which is employed to denote the action of the Roman soldiers in compelling Simon the Cyrenian to carry the cross of Christ for Him, is the same word as was borrowed from the old postal service of Persia. The Romans, who too readily made their own any instrument of oppression which they found among foreign nations, were familiar with the word, which crept into their own language, and with it the custom which it represented. No more appropriate word could have been used. It is a most picturesque, and at the same time gives a most touching pathos to the occasion. It links this single act of tyranny with the whole gigantic system. The world has been familiar with forced labour from the earliest days. As far back as we can go in the sorrowful history of our race, we find the stronger tribes making slaves and beasts of burden of the weaker, and of those whom they conquered in war. The brick-making of the Israelites, under the intolerable cruelty of which they groaned and died, was not by any means the first oppression in Egypt. Ages before that, we find proofs of the reckless disregard of human life shown by the Pharaohs, compelling thousands, without wages or even food, to construct for them those enormous monuments, the ruins of which excite the astonishment of every traveller. Nor can any modern race lift up a stone against those ancient oppressors; for there is no nation that has not been guilty of similar practices. Our own country cannot plead guiltless to the charge. It brought upon America and upon the West Indies the curse of slavery, which could be removed only by a tremendous sacrifice of blood and treasure. Within the memory of this generation men have been carried away from their homes and pursuits, and forced into the naval service of our country by the ruthless press-gang. As the cross of Christ represented the sins of the whole world laid upon the Redeemer, it may be said, therefore, that that cross, laid upon the unwilling shoulders of Simon the Cyrenian, represented all the oppressive burdens which man has laid upon his fellow-men. It was the Angareion of the world.1 [Note: Hugh Macmillan.]

3. We can imagine the feelings of shame and indignation and bitterness which must have filled Simons heart. To have come all the way from Cyrene to worship in the Temple of his fathers, to refresh his faith by taking part in the great feast, to see the sights of which he might tell to his wife and children at home, to meet the friends whom he had not seen for years, and then to have come through such a bitter, degrading experience! How could he go into the city now without feeling that every one was looking at him and saying, Theres the poor wretch who carried the cross of the Nazarene? How could he go home with nothing to tell but this story of how he had been insulted and degraded and shamefully treated? Such a thing could hardly have happened to him even in Cyrene, where the Jews had full Roman rights; and yet in Jerusalem, the joy of the whole earth, the city of the great King which he had so passionately longed to see, he had been treated like a criminal and an outcast, and branded before a crowd of fellow-countrymen with the mark of shamethe curse of the cross. If, as he read in his Bible, he was cursed of God who hung upon a treewas not he too cursed upon whose shoulders the tree hung? Had the soldiers branded him with a red-hot iron, as runaway slaves were treated, he could hardly have felt a deeper sense of degradation in mans sight, and in Gods as well.

And yet for Simon we have no pity, we have only congratulation, almost envy. He who shared for a few minutes Christs cross and its dishonour, has now an honoured name in the Church and throughout the world. His dishonour has changed into an honour which many a saint might covet. For these myrmidons of the Roman government who knew not what they did, we have much compassion even to-day, for be they what they may, in whatsoever world, suppose them to be forgiven and redeemed in answer to the Saviours prayer, yet they must pass for ever, as long as thought and memory last, as those who laid a sacrilegious hand upon the Saviour of the world, who spat in His face, and struck Him on the head, and bowed their knees to mock the Son of God!1 [Note: R. F. Horton.]

4. Simon had to be compelled to take up this burden for Jesus. We might have wished this had not been necessary. We should have liked it to be at least one bright human touch in the otherwise dark picture of our Saviours passion had Simon been so moved with pity, as he passed by, at the sight of Him struggling along under His heavy cross, that he had freely offered to bear it for Him. When we think of the Man of Sorrows on His dolorous way, of the brutal soldiery, with the ruthless mob hurrying Him to His awful death, and then of what He had been, and of all the good He had donehow He had borne the sins and sorrows of others, and lightened every mans burden but His own, it seems incredible that there should have been no one to befriend Him in His day of sorest need, no one to spare Him a single indignity, no one to bear His cross for Him, even for a little, but this Simon who had to be compelled.

Where was that other Simon? Had he not said, I will go with thee both into prison and to death? This mans name was Simon. What a silent and yet strong rebuke this must have been to him. Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Another Simon took thy place at the last hour! Where was the beloved disciple? Where were they all? Holy women were gathering round, but where were the men? Sometimes the Lords servants are backward where they are expected to be forward, and He finds others to take their place. If this has ever happened to us it ought gently to rebuke us as long as we live. We learn this lesson from the Cyrenian. Keep your place, and let not another Simon occupy it. It is said of Judas, his bishopric shall another take, but a true disciple will retain his own office.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]

II

Christ the Sin-bearer

i. The Way of the Cross

1. Jesus went out, bearing the cross for himself (Joh 19:17). One special indignity connected with the punishment of crucifixion was that the condemned man had to carry on his back through the streets the cross upon which he was about to suffer. In pictures the cross of Jesus is generally represented as a lofty structure, such as a number of men would have been needed to carry; but the reality was something totally different. A soldier was able to reach up to the lips of Christ on the cross with a sponge on a reed. It was not much above the height of a man, and there was just enough wood to support the body. But the weight was considerable, and to carry it on the back which had been torn with scourging must have been excessively painful. Another source of intense pain was the crown of thorns, if, indeed, He still wore it. We are told that before the procession set out towards Golgotha the robes of mockery were taken off and His own garments put on; but it is not said that the crown of thorns was removed. Most cruel of all, however, was the shame. There was a kind of savage irony in making the man carry the implement on which he was to suffer; and, in point of fact, throughout classical literature this mode of punishment is a constant theme of savage banter and derision.

2. There is evidence that the imagination of Jesus had occupied itself specially beforehand with this portion of His sufferings. Long before the end He had predicted the kind of death He should die; but even before these predictions had commenced He had described the sacrifices which would have to be made by those who became His disciples as cross-bearingas if this were the last extreme of suffering and indignity. Did He so call it simply because His knowledge of the world informed Him of this as one of the greatest indignities of human life? Or was it the foreknowledge that He Himself was to be one day in this position that coloured His language? We can hardly doubt that the latter was the case. And now the hour on which His imagination had dwelt was come, and in weakness and helplessness He had to bear the cross in the sight of thousands who regarded Him with scorn.

To a noble spirit there is no trial more severe than shameto be the object of cruel mirth and insolent triumph. Jesus had the lofty and refined self-consciousness of one who never once had needed to cringe or stoop. He loved and honoured men too much not to wish to be loved and honoured by them; He had enjoyed days of unbounded popularity, but now His soul was filled with reproach to the uttermost; and He could have appropriated the words of the Psalm, I am a worm and no man; a reproach of men and despised of the people. The reproach of Christ is all turned into glory now; and it is very difficult to realise how abject the reality was. Nothing perhaps brings this out so well as the fact that two robbers were sent away to be executed with Him. This has been regarded as a special insult offered to the Jews by Pilate, who wished to show how contemptuously he could treat One whom he affected to believe their king. But more likely it is an indication of how little more Christ was to the Roman officials than any one of the prisoners whom they put through their hands day by day.1 [Note: J. Stalker.] And so Jesus, in company with the two robbers, issued from the gates of the palace and passed along the Via Dolorosa.

The traditional scene of Christs death, over which the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built, is inside the present walls, but it seems to have been ascertained that the present Church is beyond the second of the ancient walls. The whole question is still sub judice. It is quite uncertain outside which gate of the city the execution took place. The name Calvary, or Golgotha, possibly indicates that the spot was a skull-like knoll; but there is no reason to think that it was a hill of the size supposed by designating it Mount Calvary. Indeed, there is no hill near any gate corresponding to the image in the popular imagination. In modern Jerusalem there is a street pointed out as the veritable Via Dolorosa along which the procession passed; but this also is more than doubtful. Like ancient Rome, ancient Jerusalem is buried beneath the rubbish of centuries. From the scene of the trial to the supposed site of the execution is nearly a mile. And it is quite possible that Jesus may have had to travel as far or farther, while an ever-increasing multitude of spectators gathered round the advancing procession.1 [Note: J. Stalker.]

ii. The Suffering Saviour

When we speak of the Cross we do not mean only the cross which Christ bore to Calvary and on which He suffered; we mean the very sufferings of Christ Himself. But do we really think of what we mean when we speak of the sufferings of Christ, the Sin-bearer of the world? Christ, we know, voluntarily took His cross. He gave Himself for us. He laid down His life for us. Even when the weight of the cross was taken from Him for those few moments, while Simon bore it, He was most really bearing it. His soul was wounded; His spirit was crucified. He lays down the cross which may be seen, the instrument of torture, at the bidding, of others, that He may the more truly bear the inward cross.

Very reverently, and with few words, one would touch upon the physical weakness of the Master. Still, it does not do us any harm to try to realise how very marked was the collapse of His physical nature, and to remember that that collapse was not entirely owing to the pressure upon Him of the mere fact of physical death; and that it was still less a failure of His will, or like the abject cowardice of some criminals who have had to be dragged to the scaffold, and helped up its steps; but that the reason why His flesh failed was very largely because there was laid upon Him the mysterious burden of the worlds sin. Christs demeanour in the act of death, in such singular contrast to the calm heroism and strength of hundreds who have drawn all their heroism and strength from Him, suggests to us that, looking upon His sufferings, we look upon something the significance of which does not lie on the surface, and the extreme pressure of which is to be accounted for by that blessed and yet solemn truth of prophecy and Gospel alikeThe Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

iii. Christs Cross and Ours

1. We are wont to speak of trouble of any kind as a cross; and doubtless any kind of trouble may be borne bravely in the name of Christ. But, properly speaking, the cross of Christ is what is borne in the act of confessing Him or for the sake of His work. When any one makes a stand for principle because he is a Christian, and takes the consequences in the shape of scorn or loss, this is the cross of Christ. The pain you may feel in speaking to another in Christs name, the sacrifice of comfort or time you may make in engaging in Christian work, the self-denial you exercise in giving of your means that the cause of Christ may spread at home or abroad, the reproach you may have to bear by identifying yourself with militant causes or with despised persons, because you believe they are on Christs sidein such conduct lies the cross of Christ. It involves trouble, discomfort, and sacrifice. One may fret under it, as Simon did; one may sink under it, as Jesus did Himself; it is ugly, painful, shameful often; but no disciple is without it. Our Master said, He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me.

2. There are three things, says Vaughan,1 [Note: Sermons, xv. 149.] which make a crossshame, and suffering, and self-mortification.

(1) Shame.Bearing the cross after Jesus frequently entails misunderstanding, coldness, suspicion, disgrace. To do it is a real pain; and there must be such a victory over self that self is nowhere. No one knows,but those who have to do it,what a martyrdom that is to a sensitive mind. No physical pain is greater, and no act of heroism is more honourable. It needs the compulsion of a strong, irresistible motive; of a conscience quickened and kindled by the love of God. That is a cross,ignominy borne for Christs sake.

(2) Suffering.It is the part of every Christian to know the fellowship of Christs sufferings. To bear the pain of the Cross of Christ would be a great thing; but to rise above the pain to the joy that is in it, and to turn the suffering to happiness, and the shame to glory, and the death of the natural feeling into the very deliciousness of the higher life,that is far greater! Such was Christs obedience, and such His love! And this is the true and the grand view of every cross.

(3) Self-Mortification.The effort to keep all things in their place involves a mortified life. To stop short of indulgence, to drive away something that we are afraid is beginning to enslave us till we have taught it its proper place and admit it again later into our life as a useful servant; to stand amidst the vast multitude of Gods creatures with which the earth teemspersons, places, things, sorrows, joys, pleasures, and painsa free man, enslaved by none but using all fearlessly; neither held back by fear nor attracted by mere pleasure, but using and accepting or rejecting each as it comes, in so far as it leads the soul Godwardthis is indeed liberty; but such liberty can be purchased only by mortification.

A successful business man kept above his desk the motto, Do the hard thing first, knowing, as every sincere person knows, that we are apt to shirk, procrastinate, and delay the most vital issues of life. Now, the Christian must do the hard thing first. The way of life, the path leading to eternal day, is difficult, thorny, and rugged. The Christian way is the way of the Cross, the righteous path is toilsome and weary, but we have the joy of knowing that

All this toil shall make us

Some day all His own,

And the end of sorrrow

Shall be near His throne.1 [Note: J. H. Renshaw.]

3. But we must be very careful that our cross is not a self-imposed one. It must not be our cross, but Christs cross. They compelled Simon to bear Christs cross. It was no willing choice. Indeed, a self-chosen cross is very seldom the right one for us to carry. And it is just here we touch the true reason of so much religious failure. We make our own crosses instead of simply carrying Christs; we strive to do religious work instead of doing our own work religiously. Yet is it not clear that if Simon had cut down all the trees in Gethsemane and all the cedars of Lebanon, he would but have made for himself a heavier burden, and would have been no true helper of Jesus Christ?

We may remember that sometimes the cross, which we are not compelled to bear, may be put down. Asceticism, pure and simple, is a sin. It is the shadow of suicide. There is no merit in bearing a cross, so far as the mere bearing is concerned. There is no merit in the cross itself. Many speak as if there were some moral worth in being distressed and hampered in the world. There is none. Bodily health is not merely a boon to be striven for, it is in some sense a virtue. Few of us are so well as we ought to be. The laws and precautions for the preservation of health are often very simple and plain, but the observance of them is tedious and troublesome. We might choose that little cross, if you like to call it so, of care and simplicity and regularity in living from love to our Father, that we may have longer time to live and do His work on earth. There are those who bear the cross of ill-health who were not really compelled to do it; the matter was in their own hands. There is not a burden or a trouble in this world, viewed simply in itself, and apart from its associations and what it leads to, which we are not justified in laying down if we can; or, rather, which it is not a positive duty to lay down if we Song of Solomon 1 [Note: T. Gasquoine.]

We shall find our cross; none of us, it is certain, will be excused. Christ had to bear His cross; so must we. He that taketh not up his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. But mark, that cross which we make our own is, in reality, Christs cross, the one He gives us. Take my yoke upon you. Simon did not choose his own. We have no right to manufacture and carry crosses of our own selection. Simon was turned back, converted. He was travelling his own self-chosen road once; after he met Jesus he must needs tread in the Saviours steps. It is all symbolical. We cannot serve Christ, bear His cross, without conversion. We need to be changed, to take up His cross instead of our own. There is more in this than we think. What makes so many formal, unreal, unhappy Christians, but the failure to appreciate this truth? For instance, what good will the Lenten season do to any person if it be to him merely a season of selfish self-denial, of selfish cross-bearing? Suppose a man leaves off smoking, or taking alcoholic drink, or novel-reading, or suppose he makes a practice of not going to any place of amusement, or of getting up an hour earlier during Lent, that is a cross-bearing, no doubt, for him, in a sensea useful discipline in certain cases. Indeed, it is to be wished that more might follow it; only remember, it must touch the spiritual lifeit must help, not hinder, it. It must not be pharisaical, pretentious; for if it be, Christ has not ordered it. He does not like it in the least. So, too, with sin. How frequently we read amiss our souls state, and fondly imagine there is nothing much the matter with us; that our faith, our works, are quite sound, when in reality there is some secret besetting root of evil eating the very life out of us, and drying up completely the springs of earnestness and love. What is needed is Divine advice and succour, a discipline and treatment not our own, but Christs. This is the central truth of Jesus dealing with Simon. The cross we try to lift must be pointed out, given to us, along with the strength to bear it, by our Lord Himself, not selected, shaped by ourselves. It will be, then,

A hidden cross for daily wear

Along a common road.

Let that be the spirit of our life, and the Christ-Cross we carry shall verily purify our conscience from dead works, and cleanse us from all sin.1 [Note: G. T. Shettle.]

The bonds that press and fetter,

That chafe the soul and fret her,

What man can know them better,

O brother men, than I?

And yet, my burden bearing,

The five wounds ever wearing,

I too in my despairing

Have seen Him as I say;

Gross darkness all around Him

Enwrapt Him and enwound Him,

O late at night I found Him

And lost Him in the day!

Yet bolder grown and braver

At sight of one to save her,

My soul no more shall waver,

With wings no longer furled,

But cut with one decision

From doubt and mens derision,

That sweet and vanished vision

Shall follow through the world.1 [Note: F. W. H. Myers, A Vision.]

III

Simon and Christ

i. Bearing the Cross with Jesus

1. St Luke tells us that they laid on Simon the cross to bear it after Jesus. It seems from St Lukes account that they did not entirely remove the cross from the shoulders of our Lord, but so arranged its parts that Simon might bear it after Jesus. And it is extremely possible that they placed the head of the cross on Christs shoulder, while the foot rested on that of Simon, so that when the eye of the man travelled along the cross it rested on the form of the suffering Son of God. The burden was thus borne between the two, but the heaviest end still rested on the shoulders of Christ. And that is the only bearable way for any man to bear the burden of the cross.2 [Note: G. Critchley.]

De Costa3 [Note: Four Witnesses, 415.] offers an interesting explanation of Simons service. He says that the cross, being ordinarily fastened to the shoulders of the condemned, was not likely to have been unloosed by the soldiers on the way. He is of opinion that Simon was only compelled by them to lift up the cross, which was proving too much for Jesus physical strength, and to walk behind or beside Him bearing it up.

2. The picture forcefully suggests the vicarious atonement of Christ. For when we look more closely, what is the real fact that takes shape? We see a sinful manone of ourselvesbearing the cross to Calvary, yet, when arrived there, once more yielding it up to Christ. So far, but only so far, he can bear that crushing load; but when the place of death is reached, where mans sin and Gods judgment meet and merge together, the human instrument becomes inadequate; he must resign it to Another, and step back into the posture of a spectator only. In this detail, as in so many minute points in the Passion-narrative, a suggestion is given of larger truths than appear at first. It seems to tell us, as if by parable, that the cross did not belong to Jesus by right; for in truth it did not belong to Him at all, it became His by choice. The cross was ours; a burden of pain, a righteous badge of shame and guilt allotted as our fit portion; a penalty that in our clearest hours we know was due for each of us: in a word, it was the cross of man. And in Simon we see none other than mans symbolic representative, by his presence and his service unconsciously declaring that there Jesus took on Himself a chastisement not His own. In that hour we were healed by His stripes. We are typified in the Cyrenian. In visible act he did what we must do in thought and feeling, if the infinite virtue of that death is to avail for us. We too must take up the cross, and in person deliver it up to Jesus Christ, in the sense that by trust and penitent sympathetic imagination we realise that it belongs to, and befits, every sinner, that it stands for the punishment we deserve, and that we should have been abandoned to endure it, had not that great love intervened. Thank God that Jesus took the cross from Simon on Calvary!1 [Note: H. R. Mackintosh.]

3. Then another and equally real sense holds good in which we are summoned to perpetuate Simons act. Not merely is the cross the gateway of the Christian life; it is its signature and distinctive mark ever after. Vicarious atonement by no means implies that we never have anything to bear. Many people think it does, thereby bringing great discredit on the Gospel; but it is a mistake born of simple ignorance, for no one can help noticing, and feeling the significance of, the fact that in the New Testament practically all the allusions to Jesus as our Pattern are given in direct connection with His Passion. Because He suffered, therefore we suffer with Him. So, again, St. Paul speaks of fellowship in the Lords sufferings as that after which he more and more aspired; and in this mixed world there will be no need to manufacture occasions of endurance; they will meet us in plenty, provided only we do not shrink from them. In each life meriting the Christian name there will be found self-denial, sacrifice, loss, humiliation, that would have been impatiently, or even indignantly, thrust aside, had Christ not chosen them, but which are made welcome, even if it be falteringly, for His sake. Do we understand what these things mean? Have we learnt that they are no accident in the devout life, but its essence? Is it even now dawning on us that there is a price to pay for fellowship with Christ? Well, if we are wakening to these vast, but sometimes forgotten, truths, and if at times the price seems very costly, let us not fail to recollect what it means for Christ that we should pay it. Simon of Cyrene bore the cross, and thus spared the Lord some pain; let us bear ours as He appoints it, in the world, and in the redeeming toil of His Kingdom; and that too will spare Him painthe pain of seeing others lost whom we might have helped to save, and the pain of beholding our so fruitless and barren lives. Nay, rather, it will fill the cup of joy that was set before Him when He Himself endured the bitter cross, despising the shame.

I think of the Cyrenian

Who crossed the city-gate

When forth the stream was pouring

That bore Thy cruel fate.

I ponder what within him

The thoughts that woke that day,

As his unchosen burden

He bore that unsought way.

Yet, tempted he as we are;

O Lord, was Thy cross mine?

Am I, like Simon, bearing

A burden that is Thine?

Thou must have looked on Simon;

Turn, Lord, and look on me,

Till I shall see and follow

And bear Thy cross for Thee.1 [Note: H. R. Mackintosh.]

ii. The Symbol of Shame turned into Glory

Behold one of lifes divinest transfigurations. When they placed the end of the cross upon the shoulders of the slave, they meant to put fresh dishonour on the Christ. But the cross has grown to be the supreme uplifting power of all those of whom that slave was the representative and type. Not only has it rescued the name of Simon the Cyrenian from oblivion but it has done far more, for it has broken the fetters of the slave well-nigh throughout the world. When these men made the slave the helper of the Saviour, they unconsciously proclaimed liberty to the captive.

The Christian freedom which Simon found in his degrading bondage, may be regarded as the earnest and the guarantee that similar Christian freedom will be enjoyed by all in the dark lands who have been compelled by their fellow-creatures to carry the cross of toil and shame. The transportation of the slave to other countries, in a manner as providential as the coming of Simon to Jerusalem, has often been the means of bringing him within the reach of Christian influences, so that his bondage has proved to him life from the dead. In bearing his compulsory cross, he has heard of the Crucified One, and now knows Jesus of Nazareth as his own Redeemer, and the truth has made him free indeed. And so it will go onuntil there shall be no compulsory labour under the sun, and every oppressed one shall enjoy the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Christianity has put its own higher meanings and purposes into the common language of men. The wild weeds brought into its garden, under the culture of grace, display a beauty and fruitfulness before unknown. The use of the Angareion, or compulsory service, of the Persians is ennobled in the service of the Christian religion. Like the other Persian word paradise, which signified originally a park or pleasure-garden, in which wild beasts were kept and beautiful foreign trees grew, but which our Lord employed to describe the blessed heavenly world into which the dying thief should be immediately translatedTo-day shalt thou be with me in paradise,so the original Persian word for compel is transformed by being used in connection with the cross-bearing of Christ. In this Divine usage it becomes the vehicle of far higher truth than any which it knew at first, and is divested of all its former disagreeable associations. Blessed are those who are compelled to bear the cross of Christ, for in so doing they are bearing the instrument of their own redemption; and the following of Christ that is at first enforced, that is done in pain and shame and toil, ends in walking with Him at liberty, running with enlargement of heart in the way of His commandments.

Do you see that young Jewish Rabbi flashing along the Damascus Road, hating the very name of Christ, and loathing the story of His cross? His life is all laid out, his position is secure, his renown is safe among the generations of Israel. But there comes one blinding flash, one awful, crushing revelation, that sweeps away the purpose and the dream of Saul for ever, and Paul stands upon his feet, the bondsman of Jesus Christ, chained for ever to the cross he once despised. Henceforth he lives a life constrained, compelled, but it is glorious living, and the mighty influence of that man, compelled to bear the cross of Christ, will last longer than the world.1 [Note: G. Critchley.]

Who speaketh now of peace?

Who seeketh for release?

The Cross is strength, the solemn Cross is gain.

The Cross is Jesus breast,

Here giveth He the rest

That to His best belovd doth still remain.

How sweet an ended strife!

How sweet a dawning life!

Here will I lie as one who draws his breath

With ease, and hearken what my Saviour saith

Concerning me; the solemn Cross is gain;

Who willeth now to choose?

Who strives to bind or loose?

Sweet life, sweet death, sweet triumph and sweet pain.2 [Note: Dora Greenwell.]

Bearing Christs Cross

Literature

Cameron (A. B.), From the Garden to the Cross, 302.

Clow (W. M.), The Day of the Cross, 157.

Critchley (G.), When the Angels have Gone Away, 101.

Hutchings (W. H.), Sermon Sketches, i. 145.

Mackintosh (H. R.), Life on Gods Plan, 242.

Maclaren (A.), A Years Ministry, 2nd Ser., 45.

Macmillan (H.), The Mystery of Grace, 48.

Oosterzee (J. J. van), The Year of Salvation, i. 285.

Speirs (E. B), A Present Advent, 192.

Spurgeon (C. H.), The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxviii. No. 1683.

Stalker (J.), The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ, 125.

Stanford (C.), The Evening of our Lords Ministry, 313.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), 15th Ser., 149.

Christian World Pulpit, xviii. 85 (Gasquoine); xlvii. 392 (Horton); lxxvii. 140 (Renshaw).

Churchmans Pulpit, pt. 9 (Holy Week), 363 (Shettle).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

they compel: Mat 27:32, Luk 23:26

a Cyrenian: Act 2:10, Act 6:9, Act 11:20, Act 13:1

and Rufus: Rom 16:13

to bear: Luk 14:27, Joh 15:18-20

Reciprocal: Mat 5:41 – compel Mat 16:24 – and take Joh 19:17 – he Rev 2:3 – hast borne

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Chapter 19.

Simon of Cyrene

“And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear His cross.”-Mar 15:21.

We come now to the touching and beautiful story of how Simon of Cyrene carried the Lord’s cross. I have noticed, in consulting my authorities, that this incident stirs even the most prosaic of them to something like poetry. Of course, one expects poetry from a man like Dr John Watson, and the chapter in which he treats of Simon in his Companions of the Sorrowful Way, is idyllic in its simple and moving pathos. But Dr Stalker is a severely sober and restrained writer, and yet even his pages glow with imagination and throb with feeling as he speaks of this man, who for a brief space stood substitute for Christ and bore His Cross. But it is the plain prose of the affair I want to give you, though indeed the plain prose of it, without any imaginative adornment is in itself poetic enough.

On the Way to the Cross.

The Open Shame.

In our country when sentence of death is passed, usually some time is allowed for the condemned prisoner to prepare himself for the last dread change, but in the case of our Blessed Lord the execution followed swiftly upon the sentence. Immediately after the failure of Pilate’s last appeal, the soldiers led away Christ to crucify Him. In these days of ours we take care not to add to the bitterness of the condemned prisoner’s lot. It is punishment enough to have to die, without surrounding death with unnecessary horrors and pains. But, in the hard and cruel world in which Jesus lived, everything was done to make the death of the criminal more bitter. Executions were always in public, and the prisoner was marched through streets lined by curious and jeering spectators to the place of doom. And in the case of those condemned to die by crucifixion (the most degrading and shameful death of all) this added ignominy was inflicted upon the victim that he had to carry his own cross. Now both these indignities they inflicted on Jesus. It was in the Governor’s palace that the trial had taken place. When sentence was finally pronounced the soldiers proceeded to lead Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem to a place called Golgotha, which was the appointed place of execution. Where exactly Golgotha was it is impossible to say. Apparently it was so-called because of its shape; it is, as Dr David Smith says, “a skull-shaped knoll” just outside the city. Whether the Via Dolorosa that is still pointed out to pilgrims is the actual way that Christ took is very questionable, but at any rate this is certain, that He had to walk through the streets of Jerusalem while brutal crowds scoffed and jeered at Him as He passed. And not only had He to walk to His place of execution through jeering crowds, but He had to walk bearing His own Cross. We must, a little, correct our notions of the kind of cross on which Christ died. It was not the heavy and massive thing we usually see depicted. “It was,” says Dr Stalker, “not much above the height of a man and there was just enough wood to support the body.”

The Burden of the Cross.

No doubt such a cross was not too heavy for the usual sort of criminal to carry. But with Jesus it was otherwise. Recall the experiences of the previous few hours. First of all He had passed through the mysterious and exhausting agony of the Garden. Then had come all the tense excitement of the various trials, first before Annas, then before the Sanhedrin, then before Pilate, then before Herod, and finally before Pilate again. And then to crown everything there had come the scourging, a cruel punishment beneath which often the sufferer died. When the soldiers, therefore, came to put His Cross upon His shoulders, they were placing upon Him a burden greater than He could bear. As Dr Watson says, “He was willing to die upon the Cross, but it seemed likely that He would not be able to carry it to Calvary.” John’s account makes it clear that faint and spent as He was, He carried the awful burden for some distance, probably through the Jerusalem streets, but when He reached the city gate, the little strength He had gave out, and He staggered and fell beneath His load.

Simon the Substitute.

It is at this very point that Simon comes into the story. The soldiers, realising that Christ was helpless, look around for someone whom they could press into the service. It was an ignominious service this carrying of the cross, and as Roman soldiers they scorned to do it themselves. Their choice fell upon Simon. He was a man of Cyrene, a prosperous North African town. That is not to say that he was an Ethiopian, as some people think. Cyrene had a large colony of Jews. In fact the Jews of Cyrene were so populous that there was a special synagogue set apart for their use in Jerusalem. And the probability is that Simon was just a Jew from Cyrene who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. He was lodging not in Jerusalem itself, but in one or other of the little villages outside. And he happened to be making his way into Jerusalem just as the procession to Golgotha was issuing out of the gate. And it was this man, Simon of Cyrene, the soldiers impressed into the ignominious service of carrying the cross.

Why Chosen?

Why was Simon the soldier’s choice? Dr Watson apparently thinks that it was Simon’s strength and size that attracted the attention of the soldiers. He speaks of him as a “sturdily-built country man.” “His prominence and his bulk,” he adds in another place, “perhaps an unconscious sympathy growing on his face, attracted their eye. Here was a fellow nature had intended to be a carrier of loads, a commen man who could make no complaint, a simpleton who had pity on an outcast.” But all this is pure imagination. No hint is given us in Holy Writ of his stature or condition. For myself, I prefer to account for Simon’s choice in another way. It is possible that Simon in some way showed sympathy with Jesus. Coming in from the country and seeing this crowd surging out of the gates, curiosity may have impelled Him to try to discover what the excitement was about. Edging his way through the crowd he would find himself face to face with Christ. It may be that just at that moment Christ fainted and fell beneath His burden, and some brutal act of the soldiers may have extorted from Simon some evident sign of sympathy. It was this, I suggest, that attracted the attention of the soldiers to Simon. They revenged themselves for Simon’s indignant remonstrance by taking the Cross from Christ’s shoulders and placing it upon his. And so it came to pass that Simon walked with Jesus to His place of execution carrying His Cross.

Let me gather up two or three of the most obvious truths this touching little incident has to teach.

How Christ Crossed Simon’s Path.

-A Divinely Ordered Meeting.

First of all, observe how Christ crossed Simon’s path. Simon was coming in out of the country, Christ was going out of the city to Golgotha, and they met at the gate. It looks, as we say, like an accidental meeting. But there was nothing accidental about it. It was divinely ordained of God that Simon should meet with His Saviour there, and that he should go outside to camp with Him, bearing His reproach. Many have deleted those mighty words-foreknow, foreordain, predestinate, from religious speech. But they stand for eternal verities nevertheless. Accident, luck and chance, are pagan words. In a world which God rules there can be no accident or luck or chance. “Nothing walks with aimless feet.” “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.” It was by the Lord’s ordering that Henry Barrow’s steps were led to the Separatist conventicle; it was by the Lord’s ordering that John Angell James’ steps were led to a house where for one brief night he shared a room with a praying youth; it was by the Lord’s ordering that Charles Spurgeon’s steps were led to that little Primitive Methodist Chapel where he found his Saviour. God besets us behind and before and lays His hands upon us. And it was by the Lord’s ordering Simon and His Saviour met at the gate leading out of the city.

-Decisive for Simon.

Again, Christ crossed Simon’s path in an unwelcome fashion, but the meeting probably marked a crisis in the life of Simon. His first introduction to Christ must always in his mind have been associated with that painful and humbling experience. Yet the quarter of an hour he spent with Christ’s cross upon his back may have been the most sacred and blessed time in his life to Simon. From what we know of him, it seems possible that Christ so spoke to his soul by the way that before its end Simon knew he had found his Saviour. And today, as then, Christ crosses men’s paths as He crossed Simon’s. Our first introduction to Him is often associated with painful and humbling experiences. He has met with many a man before today upon a bed of sickness; He has met with many a man in the shadow of bereavement; He has met with many another by the side of the open grave. The pain, the sorrow, the grave, how we shrink from them! And yet, looking back, we know that our chastisement has yielded to us the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

The Lord’s Helpers.

The story of Christ’s end is not altogether a story of coarseness and brutality and murderous hate. You can make an ugly picture gallery out of Judas and the priests and Pilate, and Herod and the brutal soldiers. But let us not forget those who were kind to Christ. The darkness is not unrelieved. Let us not forget that in this last terrible and awful week Martha and Mary had made Him a feast. One unknown friend had lent Him an ass’s colt; another had given Him his Upper Room; yet another had made Him free of his Garden; and when the day of His death came, Pilate’s wife put in a word for Him, the women of Jerusalem wept over Him, Joseph of Arimathea begged His body, and Nicodemus brought an hundredweight of spices. And amongst those who did kindness to Christ, was Simon the Cyrenian who carried His Cross. And whoever would be a disciple of the Lord, must still bear His Cross. We must enter into the fellowship of His sufferings, we must become conformed unto His death.

What Christ did for Simon.

And now, let me set down m a sentence or two some of the things Christ did for Simon. First He immortalised his name. It may seem a little matter, but it is worth bearing in mind that the righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance. Of more importance is this, that the Lord saved Simon’s soul. I make no doubt at all that Simon was a Christian man after that brief walk in the company of Christ. There is no need to identify him with that Christian preacher in Antioch, Simeon who was called Niger. Just let it suffice to say that in Christ Simon found Him of Whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write, the King of Israel, the Redeemer of His soul. He gave him the souls of his sons as well. You notice that Mark describes him as “the father of Alexander and Rufus.” That can only mean that at the time Mark wrote his Gospel, Alexander and Rufus were prominent and honoured members of the Christian Church. There is a Rufus mentioned in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (xvi. 13), and he may have been the Rufus here referred to. But in any case the fact remains that Simon’s two sons grew up to be honoured Christian men and Christian workers. And he saw the desire of his soul. And I do not know whether in later days Simon was prouder of the deed he himself had done for Jesus, or of his holy fame as the father of Alexander and Rufus.

Christ’s Rewards.

What a rich reward for a simple kindness! And that is how Christ rewards men still. The way to be eternally rich is to put Christ in your debt. For here is the great and glorious promise, signed by Him Whose word never faileth, countersigned by the experience of innumerable saints, “There is no man that hath left house or brethren or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for My sake and for the Gospel’s sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers and children, and lands… and in the world to come eternal life” (Mar 10:29-30).

Fuente: The Gospel According to St. Mark: A Devotional Commentary

1

Compel Simon . . . to bear his cross. (See notes at Mat 16:24.)

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.

[Coming out of the country; or field.] “They bring wood out of the field [on a feast-day]; either bound together, or from some place fenced round or scattered.” The Gloss there is; “They bring wood on a feast day out of the field, which is within the limits of the sabbath, if it be bound together on the eve of the feast-day, etc. A place watched and fenced in every way.” And Rambam writes, “Rabbi Jose saith, If there be a door in such a fenced place; although it be distant from the city almost two thousand cubits, which are the limits of the sabbath, one may bring wood thence.”

It may be conceived, that Simon the Cyrenean came out of the field thus loaded with wood; and you may conceive that he had given occasion to the soldiers or executioners, why they would lay the cross upon him, namely, because they saw that he was a strong bearer; and instead of one burden, they laid this other upon him to bear.

Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

Mar 15:21. Coming from the country. Lit, from the field. This statement throws no light on the reason why they impressed him for this service, nor upon the question whether it was the regular feast day or not.

The father of Alexander and Rufus. Persons well known to the first readers of this Gospel. As Mark probably wrote in Rome, the Rufus saluted in Rom 16:13, may be the person here spoken of. But the name was a common one. This Alexander, can scarcely be the man put forward by the Jews at Ephesus (Act 19:33), who may or may not be identical with the person mentioned in 1Ti 1:20; 2Ti 4:14.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

The sentence of death being passed by Pilate, who can, with dry eyes, behold the sad pomp of our Saviour’s bloody execution? Forth comes the blessed Jesus out of Pilate’s gate, bearing that cross which soon after was to bear him; with his cross on his shoulder, he marches towards Golgotha; and when they see he can go no faster, they force Simon the Cyrenian, not out of compassion but indignation, to be the porter of his cross. This Cyrenian being a Gentile, not a Jew, that bare our Saviour’s cross, thereby might be signified that the Gentiles should have a part in Christ, as well as the Jews, and be sharers with them in the benefits of the cross. At length our holy Lord comes to Golgotha, the place of his bitter and bloody execution; here, in a public place, with infamous company, betwixt two thieves, is he crucified; that is, fastened to a great cross of wood, his hands stretched forth abroad, and his feet closed together, and both hands and feet fastened with nails; his naked body lifted up in the air, hanging betwixt heaven and earth; signifying thereby, that the crucified person deserved to live in neither. This shameful, painful, and accursed death, did the holy and innocent Jesus suffer and undergo, for shameless sinners.

Some observe all the dimensions of length, breadth, depth, and height, in our Saviour’s sufferings;

for length, his passion was several hours long, from twelve to three, exposed all that time both to hungerand cold. The thieves that were crucified with him, endured only personal pains, but he underwent the miseries of all mankind.

As to its breadth, his passion extended over all the powers and parts of his soul and body; no part free but his powers and parts of his soul and body; no part free but his tongue, which was at liberty to pray for his enemies.

His sight was tormented with the scornful gestures of those who passed by, wagging their heads;

his hearing grieved with taunts and jeers of the priests and people;

his smelling offended with noisome savours in the place of skulls;

his taste with the gall and vinegar given him to drink;

his feeling was wonderfully affected by the nails which pierced his tender nerves with a multiplicity of wounds;

and for the depth of his passion, it was as deep as hell itself; enduring tortures in his soul, as well as torments in his body; groaning under the burthen of desertion, and crying out, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Lastly, For the height of his passion, his sufferings were as high as heaven, his person being infinite as well as innocent, no less than the Son of God, which adds infinite worth and value to his sufferings, Lord, Let us be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth and length, depth and height, of our Saviour’s love, in suffering for us, and let us know that love of his which passeth knowledge.

Observe next, The inscription wrote by Pilate over our suffering Saviour, This is Jesus the King of the Jews; it was the manner of the Romans, when they crucified a malefactor to publish the cause of his death in capital letters, placed over the head of the person.

Now it is observable, How wonderfully the wisdom of God over-rules the heart and pen of Pilate to draw this title, which was truly honourable, and fix it to his cross; Pilate is Christ’s herald, and proclaims him King of the Jews.

Learn hence, That the regal dignity of Christ was proclaimed by an enemy, and that in a time of his greatest sufferings and reproaches; Pilate, without his own knowledge, did our Saviour an eminent piece of service; he did that for Christ which none of his own disciples durst do; not that he did it designedly, but from the special over-ruling providence of God; no thanks to Pilate for all this, because the highest services performed to Christ undesignedly, shall neither be accepted nor rewarded by God.

Observe farther, The several aggravations of our Lord’s sufferings upon the cross.

1. From the company, he suffered with two thieves; it had been a sufficient disparagement to our blessed Saviour to have been sorted with the best of men; but to be numbered with the scum of mankind, is such an indignity, as confounds our thoughts. This was designed by the Jews to dishonour and disgrace our Saviour the more, and persuade the world that he was the greatest of offenders; but God over-ruled this also, for fulfilling an ancient prophecy concerning the Messiah, And he was numbered with the transgressors Isa 53:12.

2. Another aggravation of our Lord’s sufferings upon the cross, was the scorn and mocking derision which he met with in his dying moments, both from the common people, from their chief priests, and from the thieves that suffered with him. The common people reviled him, wagging their heads; the chief priests, though men of age and gravity, yet barbarously mocked him in his misery; and not only so, but they atheistically scoff and jeer at his faith and affiance in God, saying, He trusted in God that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, if he would have him.

Where note, That persecutors are generally atheistical scoffers; the chief priests and elders, though knowing men, yet they blaspheme God; they mock at his power, and deride his providence, which is as bad as to deny his being; so that from hence we may gather, That those who administer to God in holy things, by way of office, if they be not the best, they are the worst, of men. No such bitter enemies to the power of godliness, as the ministers of religion, who were never acquainted with the efficacy and power of it upon their own hearts and lives. Nothing on this side hell is worse than a wicked priest, a minister of God devoted to the service of the devil.

A third aggravation of our Lord’s sufferings upon the cross, was this, that the thieves that suffered with him, reviled him with the rest; that is, one of them, as St. Luke has it, or perhaps both of them might do it at first; which , if so, increases the wonder of the penitent thief’s conversion.

From the impenitent thief’s reviling Christ, we learn, That neither shame nor pain will change the mind of a resolute sinner, but even then, when he is in the suburbs of hell, will he blaspheme: They that were crucified with him, reviled him.

But the most aggravating circumstance of all the rest in our Lord’s sufferings, was this, That he was forsaken of his Father; My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Thence learn, That the Lord Jesus Christ, when suffering for our sins, was really deserted and forsaken by his Father, and left destitute, of all sensible consolation! Why hast thou forsaken me?

Learn farther, That under this desertion, Christ despaired not, but still retained a firm persuasion of God’s love unto him, and experienced necessary supports from him: My God, My God, these are words of affiance and faith.

Christ was thus forsaken for us, that we might never be forsaken by God; yet by God’s forsaking of Christ, we are not to understand any abatement of divine love, but only a witdrawing from the human nature the sense of his love, and a letting out upon his soul, a deep, afflicting sense of his displeasure against sin.

There is a twofold desertion; the one total, final, and eternal, by which God utterly forsakes a person, both as to grace and glory, being for sin wholly cast out of God’s presence, and adjudged to eternal torments. This Christ was not capable of, nor could the dignity of this person admit it.

The other is a partial, temporary desertion; when God for a little moment hides his face from his children. Now this was most agreeable to Christ’s nature, and also suitable to his office, who was to satisfy the justice of God for our forsaking of him, and to bring us back again to God, that we might be received forever.

Observe lastly, What a miraculous evidence Christ gave of his Godhead; instantly before he gave up the ghost, he cried with a loud voice. This shews he did not die according to the ordinary course of nature, gradually drawing on, as we express it; but his life was whole in him to the last, and nature as strong as ti was at first.

Other men die by degrees, and towards their end their sense of pain is much blunted: but Christ stood under the pains of death in his full strength, and his life was whole and entire in him to the very last momnent. This was evident by the mighty outcry he made when he gave up the ghost that could cry with such a loud voice as he did (in articulo mortis) could have kept himself from dying if he would.

Hence we learn, That when Christ died, he rather conquered death, than was conquered by it, he must voluntarily and freely lay down his life, before death could come at him. Thus died Christ, the captain of our salvation; and, like Sampson, became more victorious by his death, than he was in his life.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Mar 15:21-32* The Crucifixion.Usually the criminal himself carried his cross (i.e. the cross-bar, probably not the upright). Jesus seems to have been exhausted by the scourging and by His own sorrow. Simon of Cyrene was forced into His service. The reference to Simons children is pointless unless they were known to Mk.s readers (HNT). Rufus is mentioned in Rom 16:13 and Alexander in Act 19:33, 1Ti 1:20 (but they are not necessarily the same men as those to whom Mk. refers). The drugged wine used to be offered by Jewish ladies. They mixed frankincense (Jer 6:20*) with the wine, not myrrh, which was not soporific. Jesus meets death with senses undulled. The clothing of the crucified one was the perquisite of the soldiers. The casting of lots recalls Psa 22:18. The affixing of a tablet to publish the ground of punishment was not unusual. The railings of the spectators reproduce the charges against Him, especially Mar 15:29; Mar 15:32. Unconsciously, they disclose His glory. He saved others. General Booth is reported to have said, They would have believed in Him, had He come down; we believe in Him because He stayed up.

Mar 15:25. the third hour: i.e. 9 A.M. Joh 19:14* cannot easily be harmonised with this note of time. The reticence of this verse and indeed of the whole story is remarkable.

Mar 15:33-41. The Death of Jesus.At the sixth hour (12 noon) there was a preternatural gloom over Juda (reject RVm earth). This was not an eclipse, which could not occur at full moon. Either the sun was actually clouded at the time, or the incident is suggested by such a passage as Amo 8:9 or by the belief that nature mourns heroes (see Plutarch, Pelop. 295a). When the darkness had lasted for three hours, Jesus uttered the one word from the Cross recorded in Mk. and Mt. If spoken in Aramaic Eloi, Eloi, the misunderstanding that follows is strange. The Heb. li, Eli might be so misunderstood. We do not know the exact significance of this strange and seemingly desolate cry. The words come from Psa 22:1. Strange to think that is the cry of the feeling of Jesus. One is almost tempted to say that there, as in a supreme instance, is measured the distance between feeling and fact. So He felt; and yet mankind has been of another mind, that there, more than in all else that He was or did, there was God (Glover). The offer of vinegar (cf. Rth 2:14) may be an act of kindness. The waiting for Elijah is mockery, or curiosity. After six hours torture Jesus died, with one more inarticulate cry. The rent veil of the Temple symbolises the effect of His death (cf. Heb 10:19 f.). The manner of His deaththe strength of His cries and the suddenness of the endconvinced the centurion that He was more than man. The captain stands at the end of the gospel as the type and forerunner of the countless bands of heathen who have been won over to the message of the crucified One (J. Weiss). The evangelist then mentions some of the women who watched afar off and to whom he may have owed some of his information. The loyalty of the women surpassed that of the disciples. Mary of Magdala (p. 29) must not be identified with the woman that was a sinner mentioned in Luk 7:37. Salome is described in Mat 27:56 as mother of the sons of Zebedee.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 21

It has been noted as an interesting confirmation of the genuineness of the Gospels, that Mark is the only evangelist who mentions that Simon the father of Alexander and Rufus; as it was very natural that he should do, since he is supposed to have written at Rome, and for the use of Romans; and one of these persons, at least, seems to have resided there (Romans 16:13.)

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

THE CROSS

21 And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. 22 And they bring him unto the place Golgotha which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. 23 And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not. 24 And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take. 25 And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. 26 And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Simon was minding his own business and they made him take up the cross for the Lord evidently the beatings had taken a serious toll on the Lord’s physical being. We are not told who the “they” were, but since it was the Roman soldiers that were given the orders it would seem that they were the ones that picked Simon.

That would have been some interruption to one’s life. In town to run some errands and you get loaded down with a cross to carry out to the place where they killed the criminals.Simon is specifically identified as being a Cyrenian and the father of Alexander and Rufus. This may have been for identification from all the other Simons that were around. Gill mentions some detail: “They found a man of Cyrene: a place in Libya, and one of the five cities called Pentapolis: which were these, Berenice, Arsinoe, Ptolemais, Apollonia, and Cyrene …. There were many Jews dwelt here, as appears from Act 2:10, as this man was a Jew, as his name shows; and besides, there was a synagogue of the Cyrenian Jews at Jerusalem, Act 6:9, so that though he was a native of Cyrene, he might now dwell there, and some of these were converted to the faith of Christ; for of those that were scattered abroad at the death of Stephen, some were men of Cyrene, Act 11:19. And it is very likely, that this man was a favourer of Christ, which might be one reason why they laid hold on him, and obliged him to bear the cross of Christ; since he was the father of Alexander and Rufus, who were men of note among the first Christians:”

Gill mentions that Christ was stoned just outside the Sanhedrim however I find nothing in the text to indicate this. This might reveal why Christ needed someone to carry His cross, but it is an assumption as near as I can tell.

The term translated “Golgotha” is a transliteration and the term translated “skull” is the Greek word from which we gain our term cranium. Golgotha simply means a knoll. Several commentators suggest that this was the place where the Jewish leaders killed those that they condemned.

Gill presents this picture of Golgotha: “that is to say, a place of a skull: some say Adam’s skull was found here, and from thence the place had its name; this is an ancient tradition, but without foundation (m): it seems to be so called, because it was the place where malefactors were executed, and afterwards buried; whose bones and skulls in process of time might be dug up, and some of them might lie scattered about in this place: for, one that was executed as a malefactor (n), “they did not bury him in the sepulchres of his ancestors; but there were two places of burial appointed by the sanhedrim; one for those that were stoned, and for those that were burnt; and another for those that were killed with the sword, and for those that were strangled; and when their flesh was consumed, they gathered the bones, and buried them in their place; i.e. in the sepulchres of their ancestors.”

Not only did they give Him false worship while they were beating Him but they further declared who He was by telling everyone present, in their ignorance, who He was. “And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Not that they knew that all they did was truth, nor did they give this information knowingly and truthfully, but in reality their falsehood and mockery told the world what they were too ignorant to know – this was the King of the Jews come to set up His kingdom on earth, yet they rejected and made a mockery of His presence among them. Well, rather normal for man – reject truth and embrace falsehood.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

15:21 And they {3} compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.

(3) The rage of the wicked has no measure; meanwhile, even the weakness of Christ, who was in pain under the heavy burden of the cross, manifestly shows that a lamb is led to be sacrificed.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

3. Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and burial 15:21-47

Jesus’ sufferings continued to increase as He drew closer to the Cross.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The crucifixion of Jesus 15:21-32 (cf. Matthew 27:32-44; Luke 23:26-43; John 19:17b-27)

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Probably only Mark mentioned Simon’s sons because the Christians in Rome knew them or knew of them (cf. Rom 16:13). Evidently Simon became a believer in Jesus. Mark mentioned very few people by name other than the Twelve. Simon was evidently a North African Jew who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover season. Since there was a large population of Jews in Cyrene it is probable that Simon was racially a Semite rather than a Negro. [Note: Hiebert, p. 389; Wessel, p. 778.] Simon had to do literally what all followers of Jesus must do figuratively, namely, bear His cross (cf. Mar 8:34; Luk 23:26).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

CHAPTER 15:21-32 (Mar 15:21-32)

CHRIST CRUCIFIED

“And they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to go with them, that he might bear His cross. And they bring Him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. And they offered Him wine mingled with myrrh: but He received it not. And they crucify Him, and part His garments among them, casting lots upon them, what each should take. And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. And the superscription of His accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. And with Him they crucify two robbers; one on His right hand, and one on His left. And they that passed by railed on Him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ha! Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save Thyself, and come down from the cross. In like manner also the chief priests mocking Him among themselves with the scribes said, He saved others; Himself He cannot save. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with Him reproached Him.” Mar 15:21-32 (R.V.)

AT last the preparations were complete and the interval of mental agony was over. They led Him away to crucify Him. And upon the road an event of mournful interest took place. It was the custom to lay the two arms of the cross upon the doomed man, fastening them together at such an angle as to pass behind his neck, while his hands were bound to the ends in front. And thus it was that Jesus went forth bearing His cross. Did He think of this when He bade us take His yoke upon us? Did He wait for events to explain the words, by making it visibly one and the same to take His yoke and to take up our cross and follow Him?

On the road, however, they forced a reluctant stranger to go with them that he might bear the cross. The traditional reason is that our Redeemer’s strength gave way, and it became physically impossible for Him to proceed; but this is challenged upon the ground that to fail would have been unworthy of our Lord, and would mar the perfection of His example. How so, when the failure was a real one? Is there no fitness in the belief that He who was tempted in all points like as we are, endured this hardness also, of struggling with the impossible demands of human cruelty, the spirit indeed willing but the flesh weak? It is not easy to believe that any other reason than manifest inability, would have induced His persecutors to spare Him one drop of bitterness, one throb of pain. The noblest and most delicately balanced frame, like all other exquisite machines, is not capable of the rudest strain; and we know that Jesus had once sat wearied by the well, while the hardy fishers went into the town, and returned with bread. And this night our gentle Master had endured what no common victim knew. Long before the scourging, or even the buffeting began, His spiritual exhaustion had needed that an angel from heaven should strengthen Him. And the utmost possibility of exertion was now reached: the spot where they met Simon of Cyrene marks this melancholy limit; and suffering henceforth must be purely passive.

We cannot assert with confidence that Simon and his family were saved by this event. The coercion put upon him, the fact that he was seized and “impressed” into the service, already seems to indicate sympathy with Jesus. And we are fain to believe that he who received the honor, so strange and sad and sacred, the unique privilege of lifting some little of the crushing burden of the Savior, was not utterly ignorant of what he did. We know at least that the names of his children, Alexander and Rufus, were familiar in the Church for which St. Mark was writing, and that in Rome a Rufus was chosen in the Lord, and his mother was like a mother to St. Paul (Rom 16:13). With what feelings may they have recalled the story, “him they compelled to bear His cross.”

They led Him to a place where the rounded summit of a knoll had its grim name from some resemblance to a human skull, and prepared the crosses there.

It was the custom of the daughters of Jerusalem, who lamented Him as He went, to provide a stupefying draught for the sufferers of this atrocious cruelty. “And they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He received it not,” although that dreadful thirst, which was part of the suffering of crucifixion, had already begun, for He only refused when He had tasted it.

In so doing He rebuked all who seek to drown sorrows or benumb the soul in wine, all who degrade and dull their sensibilities by physical excess or indulgence, all who would rather blind their intelligence than pay the sharp cost of its exercise. He did not condemn the use of anodynes, but the abuse of them. It is one thing to suspend the senses during an operation, and quite another thing by one’s own choice to pass into eternity without consciousness enough to commit the soul into its Father’s hands.

“And they crucify Him.” Let the words remain as the Evangelist left them, to tell their own story of human sin, and of Divine love which many waters could not quench, neither could the depths drown it.

Only let us think in silence of all that those words convey.

In the first sharpness of mortal anguish, Jesus saw His executioners sit down at ease, all unconscious of the dread meaning of what was passing by their side, to part His garments among them, and cast lots for the raiment which they had stripped from His sacred form. The Gospels are content thus to abandon those relics about which so many legends have been woven. But indeed all through these four wonderful narratives the self-restraint is perfect. When the Epistles touch upon the subject of the crucifixion they kindle into flame. When St. Peter soon afterwards referred to it, his indignation is beyond question, and Stephen called the rulers betrayers and murderers (Act 2:23-24; Act 3:13-14; Act 7:51-53) but not one single syllable of complaint or comment mingles with the clear flow of narrative in the four Gospels.

The truth is that the subject was too great, too fresh and vivid in their minds, to be adorned or enlarged upon. What comment of St. Mark, what mortal comment, could add to the weight of the words “they crucify Him”? Men use no figures of speech when telling how their own beloved one died. But it was differently that the next age wrote about the crucifixion; and perhaps the lofty self-restraint of the Evangelists has never been attained again.

St. Mark tells us that He was crucified at the third hour, whereas we read in St. John that it was “about the sixth hour” when Pilate ascended the seat of judgment (Joh 19:14). It seems likely that St. John used the Roman reckoning, and his computation does not pretend to be exact; while we must remember that mental agitation conspired with the darkening of the sky, to render such an estimate as he offers even more than usually vague.

It has been supposed that St. Mark’s “third hour” goes back to the scourging, which, as being a regular part of Roman crucifixion, he includes, although inflicted in this case before the sentence. But it will prove quite as hard to reconcile this distribution of time with “the sixth hour” in St. John, while it is at variance with the context in which St. Mark asserts it.

The small and bitter heart of Pilate keenly resented his defeat and the victory of the priests. Perhaps it was when his soldiers offered the scornful homage of Rome to Israel and her monarch, that he saw the way to a petty revenge. And all Jerusalem was scandalized by reading the inscription over a crucified malefactor’s head, The King of the Jews.

It needs some reflection to perceive how sharp the taunt was. A few years ago they had a king, but the scepter had departed from Judah; Rome had abolished him. It was their hope that soon a native king would forever sweep away the foreigner from their fields. But here the Roman exhibited the fate of such a claim, and professed to inflict its horrors not upon one whom they disavowed, but upon their king indeed. We know how angrily and vainly they protested; and again we seem to recognize the solemn irony of Providence. For this was their true King, and they, who resented the superscription, had fixed their Anointed there.

All the more they would disconnect themselves from Him, and wreak their passion upon the helpless One whom they hated. The populace mocked Him openly: the chief priests, too cultivated to insult avowedly a dying man, mocked Him “among themselves,” speaking bitter words for Him to hear. The multitude repeated the false charge which had probably done much to inspire their sudden preference for Barabbas, “Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it again in three days, save Thyself and come down from the cross.”

They little suspected that they were recalling words of consolation to His memory, reminding Him that all this suffering was foreseen, and how it was all to end. The chief priests spoke also a truth full of consolation, “He saved others, Himself He cannot save,” although it was no physical bar which forbade Him to accept their challenge. And when they flung at Him His favorite demand for faith, saying “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe” surely they reminded Him of the great multitude who should not see, and yet should believe, when He came back through the gates of death.

Thus the words they spoke could not afflict Him. But what horror to the pure soul to behold these yawning abysses of malignity, these gulfs of pitiless hate. The affronts hurled at suffering and defeat by prosperous and exultant malice are especially Satanic. Many diseases inflict more physical pain than torturers ever invented, but they do not excite the same horror, because gentle ministries are there to charm away the despair which human hate and execration conjure up.

To add to the insult of His disgraceful death, the Romans had crucified two robbers, doubtless from the band of Barabbas, one upon each side of Jesus. We know how this outrage led to the salvation of one of them, and refreshed the heavy laden soul of Jesus, oppressed by so much guilt and vileness, with the visible firstfruit of His passion, giving Him to see of the travail of His soul, by which He shall yet be satisfied.

But in their first agony and despair, when all voices were unanimous against the Blessed One, and they too must needs find some outlet for their frenzy, they both reproached Him. Thus the circle of human wrong was rounded.

The traitor, the deserters, the forsworn apostle, the perjured witnesses, the hypocritical pontiff professing horror at blasphemy while himself abjuring his national hope, the accomplices in a sham trial, the murderer of the Baptist and his men of war, the abject ruler who declared Him innocent yet gave Him up to die, the servile throng who waited on the priests, the soldiers of Herod and of Pilate, the pitiless crowd which clamored for His blood, and they who mocked Him in His agony, — not one of them whom Jesus did not compassionate, whose cruelty had not power to wring His heart. Disciple and foeman, Roman and Jew, priest and soldier and judge, all had lifted up their voice against Him. And when the comrades of His passion joined the cry, the last ingredient of human cruelty was infused into the cup which James and John had once proposed to drink with Him.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary