Never the Same

         Can you imagine being a 13-year-old kid tagging along with your Dad as he traveled to the big city?

         A devout Jewish father traveled by foot from his small town to Jerusalem every year for Passover. One year Rufus and his brother, Alexander, were old enough to travel with him.

         When they arrived, the city was crowded with people and animals.The noise, the smell, the people and animals pressed against them as they tried to walk through the narrow street. The noise grew louder and Rufus could tell there was some type of commotion happening up the street from them.

         They heard shouting and Roman soldiers with whips pushed people out of the way to make room for a procession. The crowd pressed back against each other to make room. The father kept his arms around his sons, so they wouldn’t get lost in the crowed. He looked for another way to go, or a side street for them to turn onto, but they were trapped in the throng of people unable to move.

         As the crowd parted to make room for the soldiers, the boys and their father were on the front row, closest to the street. The brothers looked to see what was going on and to their horror, there was a man who had been beaten beyond recognition attempting to drag two pieces of wood tied together. The man’s eyes were swollen shut. Blood streamed down his face from the thorns crammed into his forehead. He stumbled and fell to his knees under the weight of the wood.

         As the procession grew closer, people gasped at the flesh hanging off the man, where he had been whipped almost to death. The man staggered and fell to his knees again. Surely the man would die right there in the middle of the street, Rufus thought. How could he go on? He was too weak and badly beaten.

         When the Roman soldiers were directly in front of Rufus and his brother, their Dad tried to shield them from the horror of the brutalized man. Suddenly, a soldier yelled toward them,                                                                

“Carry his cross!”

         Nobody knew who he was talking to, until the angry soldier grabbed their Dad by his cloak and pulled him out of the crowd and away from his sons. The boys screamed, but it was drowned out by the shouts and screams of the crowd. The soldier pushed their Dad toward the fallen piece of wood.

                                                     

 “Carry his cross!”, he demanded again.

         Holding onto each other, the boys were carried along by the crowd, as they followed their father, who was now at the front of the procession. They watched as their tall father lifted the heavy beam and dragged it along the street. The man’s blood and sweat from the wood dripped down onto their Dad’s shoulders. What was going to happen to their Dad? Why was he picked out of the crowd? What did he do to deserve this? They wondered.

         The soldiers pulled the beaten man to his feet and continued to push him along the street. Everyone followed. When they reached a hill outside the city gates, the boys gasped in terror! There were two other wooden beams, standing upright, with men, who were still alive, nailed to them.

         The boys began to cry. Was their Dad going to be nailed to the cross he was carrying? No! It couldn’t be! This couldn’t be happening to him!

         As their Dad reached the place between the two crucified men, a soldier motioned for him to lay the cross down. Exhausted, he placed it on the ground. The soldiers pushed their Dad out of the way and grabbed the beaten man, who already looked near death. The boys had never seen anything, man or animal, as bloodied as that man.

         The soldiers threw the man down on the cross. He screamed out as they nailed his hands and feet to the wood. Then, they lifted the wooden cross upright, so the crowd could see the crucified man.

         Their Dad searched the crowd and finding his sons, knelt down and wrapped his big arms around them. The crucified man’s blood was still wet on his cloak. He hugged his sons and told them they were safe now and everything would be alright.

         Only everything was not alright. The three of them left the crowd and walked back into the city. Six hours later, the sky turned black and there was an earthquake. People said the man whose cross their Dad carried, was finally dead.

         The boys and their father were never the same. They returned to their hometown of Cyrene, but not before they heard the news. Three days after the crucified man was laid in a tomb, his body was missing. A woman found the huge entrance stone rolled away from the tomb, and the man, whose name they learned was Jesus, was no longer there.

         The man who carried the cross of Jesus was named Simon. He, his sons and their mother were never the same after their encounter with Jesus.

How do we know they were never the same? Because more than 30 years later, Paul mentioned Rufus and his mother in his letter to the believers in Rome, who were part of the early church.

“A man named Simon was passing by. He was from Cyrene. He was the father of Alexander and Rufus. Simon was on his way in from the country. The soldiers forced him to carry the cross.” Mark 15:21

“Greet Rufus. He is a chosen believer in the Lord. And greet his mother.

She has been like a mother to me too.” Romans 16:13

Many people in the Bible were changed when they had an encounter with Jesus. Simon and his sons would never be the same.

Can you imagine being there and being forced to carry the cross of Christ?

This is Day 17 of the 31 Days of Change series.If you would like to read previous year's series, click here to read about Our Adoption Adventure. Click here to read about Hearing God. If you would like to read other blogs and different topics you can go to Write31days.com.

Day 1:   He Did What?!

 Day 2:  Called Out in Class

Day 3:  Stuck in the Desert

Day 4:  Nicest Guy in Hell

Day 5:  Domino's Delivers More Than Pizza

Day 6:  Mommy, You Need God  - Part 1

Day 7:  Mommy, You Need God - Part 2

Day 8:  Meeting My Messiah

Day 9:   Depression to Joy

Day 10:  Seasons of Change

Day 11:  In the Enemy's Ring

Day 12:  Holding His Hand

Day 13:  Changed

Day 14:  12 Thoughts on Change

Day 15:  A Prodigal Daughter’s Journey

Day 16:  What if God Never Calls?

Day 17:  Never the Same

Day 18:  The C Word

Day 19:   Punk to Pastor

Day 20:  Lessons After Class

Day 21:

Day 22:  I Can Handle it On My Own

Day 23:

Day 24:

Day 25:

Day 26:

Day 27:

Day 27:

Day 28:

Day 29:

Day 30:

Day 31: