What? Why ME?

I've often wondered why Simon is included in this story. He doesn't seem to be much of a character, yet his name is mentioned. Supposedly there's so much in a name in the Bible, and so I wonder. What was so special about this guy? As it was mentioned in the reflection, he seemed to be there accidentally...or more likely at the wrong place at the wrong time.

But are there "accidents" in God's plan? If He is the Great Orchestrator, there is a reason and purpose for everything and everyone, even when those everythings and everyones may seem so insignificant to us.

I wonder what went through Simon's head as he was commanded to carry the cross of Christ. Did he even know who he was carrying the cross for? Did he find out afterwards? To him, Jesus might have just been another criminal facing the death penalty. To him, Christ might have been a pariah, an outcast...which was precisely who Christ was. Did it matter that he didn't know?

If anything, one thing we do know. Simon was from Cyrene, a city in the country of Libya (a country to the left of Egypt on the African continent). Simon was a foreigner. It was Roman law that allowed soldiers to press any Roman subject into immediate service. Which is funny, because Simon probably was NOT a Roman citizen. He might have been Jewish because we see him in town around the time of Passover. Nevertheless, they probably didn't check to see if he was a Roman subject or not; they most likely pulled him out of the crowd at random.

So why is it that we see a foreigner carrying Jesus' cross? He wasn't even a follower. What was God getting at, sending a foreigner to carry the cross of One who is persecuted by Hebrew Jewish leaders through Roman law? Or, to turn the question around, why was he NOT a Hebrew or a Roman citizen? Did God have a purpose for Simon?

It's important to remember that Christ didn't come just for the Jews or just for the locals. He came for all, regardless of ethnicity or race (or religion). It's also key to remember that throughout the Bible we see foreigners, Gentiles if you will, playing important parts in God's grand plan. Would it be off to think that Simon, this foreigner, was blessed by God when he was chosen to carry the cross of Christ? In the eyes of the world, he might have just been some random, unlucky guy. Heck, he might have thought so, too. But in the eyes of God, Simon had done much, and had, even perhaps without knowing, given the glory to God.

It's hard to come up with a take-home message from this passage about Simon. But I guess it shows us that there is no accident, no mistake, in God's plan. Everything is there for a reason, everything is there with a purpose. We might find ourselves in some "unlucky" situations, but think: does our being there, at that specific point in time, bring glory to God? We may not know why we are placed there at that moment. We may ask, "Why ME?".

I've learned that NOT knowing is ok. God works through that, too, and in ways we probably can't imagine anyway.