“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.” — Mark 15.21.

Cyrene was a Greek city in the province of Cyrenaica, in eastern Libya, in northern Africa. It had a Jewish community, where 100,000 Judean Jews had been forced to settle during the reign of Ptolemy Soter (323–285 BC) and it became an early centre of Christianity. Cyrene, the ancient Greek and later Roman city near present-day Shahhat, Libya, was the oldest and most important of all five Greek cities in the region. It gave eastern Libya the classical name of Cyrenaica that it has retained into modern times. Located nearby is the ancient Necropolis(cemetery) of Cyrene.

Church tradition tells us that Alexander and Rufus were first century missionaries who originated in Cyrene. Paul mentions Rufus in his salutations in Romans 16:13. In 1941 archaeologists discovered a burial cave belonging to some Cyrenian Jews dating before AD 70. One of the crypts is labelled “Alexander son of Simon.”

Sydney Poitier was cast as Simon in “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (1965). This is probable because the Hellenistic Jews of North Africa intermarried with converts from the local population. Or Simon could have just been a Jewish convert outright.

It is approximately 1200kms from Cyrene to Jerusalem by land. Although sea travel was swifter, safer and far more likely. Whichever way you look at it, in the spring of AD 31 Simon had come on a long journey. As he entered Jerusalem, he never conceived that Roman soldiers were about to make him immortal. Like ships passing diagonally on a moonlit sea, they gleam in ghostlike splendour, silvery pure for this moment as they merge. In a moonbeam of time Simon crossed the bow of the Saviour and then was swallowed up again in darkness.

Simon, fortuitously, met the procession at the gate of the city for an instant. Caught in the radiance of the light, he 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, yet the man and his act and its consequences are worth thinking about. As Simon enters the city and meets this strange procession, he sees soldiers trying to control a mob moving like lava. At its centre three naked men were carrying crosses, but one is bruised and battered. He had been through something the other two hadn’t.

This Jewish Cyrenian had travelled to Jerusalem for the Passover. This would have created problems of accommodation because of the season, and he would have been obliged to seek shelter in surrounding villages. On this incidental morning he was returning to Jerusalem knowing nothing of Jesus’ trial. He sees the procession as it was passing out the gate. Because they appeared to be common criminals, he resented being forced by rough authority to carry Jesus’ cross. Church tradition indicates the two sons of Sion became Christians and that is why they were referred to in Mark 15:21. It is also supposed that his son Rufus is the one mentioned in the salutations of Romans 16:13.

We can probably say with confidence, that this brief glimpse in the morning, and Simon’s contact with the saviour, combined with the events of the day, that the story ended with his acceptance of Christ as the Messiah. He bore in a truer sense the cross for life!

So what can we learn from this: life is full of trifles that seem inconsequential but can change our course quite dramatically. For example, if he had left 5 minutes earlier, or lodged on the other side of Jerusalem, or even if he entered the city from another gate, things would have played out differently. It was on a whim that the centurion’s fancy fastened on him. It could have been someone else.

The trifles of my life led me to the door of someone who would reveal my eternal destiny to me. Why do we turn one way and not another? I remember the story of a lady who changed her flight because the flight was on her Sabbath. It was that plane she rejected, that got shot out of the sky over Ukraine in 2014.

Insignificant things have a strange knack of suddenly developing into unexpected consequences. They turn out to be great things that are decisive. I sometimes look at a map of Brazil and ask myself “how did I meet someone  (my wife) from there?”

God is the moulder of destiny, and we can never tell which event will become a formative influence on our lives. We are told that if we are “faithful in small things then we will be worthy of greater”. Remember how our grandparents told us, “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.”

In a spiritual sense we must bring to bear our Christian principles even on the trivialities of life. If we do not do this, then they will not have influence on the mighty things. The vagaries of life can have far reaching outcomes. If we are waiting for the great events to which we can apply our lofty principles, beware least life slip through your fingers like sand one grain at a time. Life is made up of little things. John Lennon said, “life is what happens while we are making other plans.”

More than anything else we also need to have a quiet confidence in Him whose hands the whole puzzling overwhelming mystery lies. He is softly in the shadows working and shaping His will. Believe in the great loving Providence that lies above all and shapes the vicissitudes and mysteries of life. We can leave all in His hands – and if we are wise, we shall do so.