PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “Transforming bad luck into blessed luck!”
By: Ron Woodrum
Do you remember the group from Hee Haw that used to sing the song, “Gloom, Despair, and Agony?” It went something like this…“Gloom, despair, and agony on me. Deep dark depression, excessive misery! If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. Gloom, despair, and agony on me!” It could be that Simon, from Cyrene, who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish Passover, may have found himself singing that song. He quickly found his celebration turn into confusion. He got caught up in a mob’s commotion parading condemned crimminals to a crucifixion. Just being confronted with this awful scene was bad enough, but as he stood by he was forced to “become involved” and was “compelled to bear one of the crimminal’s cross”. Mark gives us a vivid description to this event. “And they led him out that they may crucify him, (Jesus), And they compelled one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from a field, to lift and carry his cross” Mark 15:20-21. Mark, retelling Peter’s recollections, tells us that there was a bystander, one just passing by, coming in out from the countryside. But the Roman quards in charge of the execution picked him out of the crowd, and forced him, against his will, at least at first, to lift the heavy cross Jesus was being forced to carry to his execution. By anyone’s first impression-not so good happenstance! Why me? Why this? Why now? What now? Touching the blood, made him unclean. Now he cannot participate in the Passover-the very reason for his trip to Jerusalem. What bad luck! He was clearly “a passer-by”. He was clearly forced to change his plans, and get right into the middle of a public execution. None of these events were on his planned agenda. He did not choose them. They were forced on him, against his will. The word compelled is the Greek word, aggarueo, “means to force against one’s will!” But when we take a closer look at the incident, and the things that followed, we may conclude that what appeared to be bad luck, was actually blessed luck!
How do we define “luck”? The word originally came into the English language in Middle English, from Middle Dutch, meaning “to happen fortunately”. Early on it was not seen as the result of “chance”, but an integral part of God’s involvement in one’s life. Origianally, in the Anglican Book of Common Prayers, Psalm 45: 2 was translated “Good luck have thou with thine honor”. Good luck was seen as “God’s luck to you”. Robert Farrar Coppola, in his book Health, Money, and Love, …and why we don’t enjoy them- says “all luck good or bad is God’s metier”, (specialty). He quotes Charles Williams as saying, “all luck is Holy luck!” Eugene Peterson, author of the translation The Message, picked up on this and chose that phrase, Holy Luck, as the title of his book of Spiritual Poems describing the Christian’s blessed experience of the Sovereignty of God in his life. After all Romans 8:28 does not say “all things work together for good, to those who love the Lord, and are called according to His purpose”, (as the King James Version says), But nstead the Greek reads literally, “For we know…that for those that love God, He works all things together into good, for those called according to His purpose”. That sounds alot like “Holy Luck”. We are all recipients of that! But as we read the story of Simon of Cyrene we will likely conclude that what appeared as his “bad luck” was actually “blessed luck!”.
Simon’s story is in all three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. So it is important. Why is this “nobody” so duly noted? Mark tells us that he was the father of “Rufus and Alexander”. (Mark was written to Rome, and it is assumed that the Roman Church knew these two young men). Paul, in his letter to the Romans, in 16:13, mentions Rufus, as “a chosen vessel of the Lord, and his mother, as a mother to Paul as well”! There is an osurary, (a container of bones), found in Jerusalem with the name of Alexander, the son of Simon of Cyrene. Tradition tells us that somewhere along the Via Dolorosa, or at the foot of the cross, or at Pentecost, that Simon of Cyrene became a believer in Jesus Christ. Tradition tells us that he died as an early Christian martyr, and that his two sons Rufus and Alexander, and his wife were dynamic first century Christians in Jerusalem, and perhaps later in Rome. None of this would have become a reality had Simon not encountered his stroke of “Holy Luck”…his “bad luck” being transformed by God into “Blessed Luck”.
I love how the poet Khalil Gibron describes this transformation of Simon with his pen…”I was on my way to the fields when I saw Him carrying His cross; and multitudes were following Him. Then I too walked beside Him. His burden stopped Him many a time, for His body was exhausted. Then a Roman Soldier approached me, saying ‘Come you are strong and of firm build; carry the cross of this man.’ “ He goes on to write, “I was filled with wonder. Now, the cross I carried has become MY Cross. Should they say to me again, ‘Carry the cross of this man’. I would carry it till my road ended at the grave…this happened many years ago; and still whenever I follow the furrow in the field, and in that drowsy moment before sleep, I think always of that Beloved Man.” God gives all of us similar “Holy Luck” to carry the Cross of Christ too. As a matter of fact, the writer of the Book of Hebrews challenges us to Run our Race, by Carrying our Cross, focusing on the example our Lord has given us. That is our message today.