Tell Us Again, Rufus, About Your Dad
There are several Simons in the Bible. Do you remember who Simon of Cyrene is?
He was passing by when a group of Roman soldiers pressed him into service.
Luke's gospel records "When they led Him away, they seized a man, Simon of
Cyrene, coming in from the country, and placed on him the cross to carry behind
Jesus." (Luke 23:26).
How do you think Simon felt about this? Did he know at all what was going on?
Did he believe that Jesus was a prophet of God? What became of him in the
future? We do not know a lot about that, but consider something with me that we
do know.
Simon was the father of two sons. Mark's gospel adds this fact: "They pressed
into service a passer-by coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene (the father of
Alexander and Rufus), to bear His cross" (Mark 15:21).
Perhaps Simon was in Jerusalem for the Passover. We know that for the following
Pentecost there were visitors from all over the known world gathered together in
Jerusalem to celebrate the festival. This included "Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt
and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and
proselytes..." (Acts 2:10). Mark's gospel seems primarily directed at Gentiles,
and specifically Romans.
There was probably a reason that Mark mentioned the names of the two sons of
Simon in his gospel. The names evidently meant something to the Roman Christians
at the time the gospel was written. In fact, in Paul's letter to the church art
Rome he sends personal greetings to the brethren there mentioning many of them
by name. Among those he mentioned was Rufus: "Greet Rufus, a choice man in the
Lord, also his mother and mine" (Roman 16:13).
But note again Mark's account. This explains why Mark mentions the sons' names
in a gospel he is writing to brethren a continent away. One of Simon's sons, a
half a generation later, is a member of the Lord's church there. I wonder how
many times Rufus had heard his father tell the story of the day the Roman
soldiers forced him into labor on the road leading out of Jerusalem? And how
often had he repeated to others the things he had heard about his father's
personal experience on that darkest of all Friday mornings.
At any rate, these were people that could be talked to. These were people who
had actually witnessed the things we're told in the gospels. This is not a made
up tale. Ask Rufus' father.
By Jon W. Quinn
The Front Page
From Expository Files 16.12; December 2009
