This may seem strange to you, but it is true: an African man did save Jesus. It was when the priests and Pharisees and the Romans were forcing Jesus to carry His heavy cross up the hill to Calvary. The Romans, when they crucified people, always forced them to carry their cross to theplace where they would be nailed to it. It was very cruel—the last thing that a condemned man could do with his arms and legs (while he could still use them) was to carry that heavy weight. And this time they would not be kind to Jesus: they would treat Him as if He were a bad criminal.
Jesus had been up all the night before, had nothing to drink and nothing to eat. He had been ridiculed, condemned, laughed at. Cruel men had squashed a crown of sharp thorns on to His head (they hurt!). And they had beaten Him until the blood flowed from His back. When they laid the heavy cross on His shoulders, He tried ever so bravely to carry it all by Himself. But He was weakened by what He had already been through.
Jesus fainted beneath that terribly heavy load. The crowd that had been laughing and ridiculing Him stopped. Everybody wondered—now what’s going to happen? The Roman soldiers were too cruel to offer to help Him; they just stood around, looking for someone they could force to do it. If they had kept on trying to force Him to carry it, it could have killed Him right there.
Just then an African man who was from out of town walked by. What’s all the excitement about, he wondered. He stopped to watch, and saw the face of Jesus. He knew in his heart that this was not the face of a bad man; He is a good man! He said something good about Jesus, and the Roman soldiers heard him. Ah ha, they thought! Here’s somebody who is a friend of this terrible Man! We’ll make him carry the cross all the rest of the way! So they laid the cross on the shoulders of Simon of Cyrene, a man from Africa.
Simon did not refuse; he didn’t try to argue or squirm his way free. He gladly bowed himself under the weight of the cross of Jesus and carried it all the way up the hill. (By the way, not one of Jesus’ eleven disciples in the crowd offered to do this!) Simon saved Jesus from being tortured further.
We all stop to honor the continent of Africa which gave us one of her sons to carry the cross of the Son of God when He needed someone to help Him! Simon will be happy through all eternity that he did this. And when we meet him in the resurrection day, we will all thank him too, won’t we?
But how about today? Even now, Jesus cannot carry His cross all by Himself. Put yourself in Simon’s place—would you have been willing to help?