Knowing The Word in Luke 23:26-31, The Crucifixion

In the first century AD, it was customary for one to carry his own cross or the cross-bar to the place of crucifixion. Weakened by the scourging Jesus likely received before the cross was placed on his back, he needed help, so the soldiers conscripted Simon of Cyrene. Elsewhere in Mark and Romans we find that Simon and his family are known in the Church. Was Simon already a follower of Jesus, or did this encounter lead him to faith? Many in Jerusalem admired and felt sympathy for Jesus in a noisy demonstration of grief as he walked by. As is his tendency, Luke emphasizes the women in the crowd to whom Jesus speaks. These, however, are not the Galilean women who may have followed him to the city but the women who lived in the city. Jesus wants their repentance not their sympathy. He predicts the future will be so bad that, in the words of the prophets, people will cry out for death in order to escape the coming wrath of God. The last verse is a proverbial saying with several possible interpretations. “If the innocent Jesus suffered thus, what will be the fate of the guilty Jews?” “If the Romans kill the One whom they admit being innocent, what will they do to the guilty?” “If the Jews behave like this before their wickedness reaches its consummation, what will they be like when it does?” We are left not knowing exactly what the verse means, but whatever it is, it is not good.

Luke 23:26-31

26 And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. 27 And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. 28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Prayer

Lord Jesus, on the holy day of your passion stretched out your arms upon the hard wood of the cross, that all people might be brought within your saving embrace; draw us to yourself with the bands of your love, that we may be found by you and find you; and grant that, evermore being bound to you as your faithful servants, we may take up our cross daily and follow you, and at last attain to your eternal joy; who lives and reigns with the Father and Holy Spirit, world without end.

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