“Simon of Cyrene, Who Carried the Cross,” Liahona, Apr. 2026.
They Knew the Savior
Simon of Cyrene, Who Carried the Cross
Like Simon, we may find that the burdens we bear in obedience become the greatest honor of our lives.
Illustration by Laura Serra, may not be copied
In one of the most human scenes in the Savior’s exemplary life, Simon of Cyrene became an eyewitness to the “love and grief beyond degree.”
In the swirl of dust and shouts that filled the streets of Jerusalem that fateful Friday, Simon was pulled from the crowd and compelled to carry the cross of the condemned Jesus of Nazareth. Simon had come from a city in North Africa, possibly a devout Jew making pilgrimage for the Passover.
“And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross,” records Mark (Mark 15:21).
At the Right Place and Time
Simon did not volunteer. He was, by all accounts, an outsider. And yet, he was chosen. In the chaos of the Crucifixion procession, as Jesus stumbled under the weight of the cross, Simon was there.
We know precious little of Simon, but it is pleasant to imagine that as heaven orchestrated the details of the eternally significant Atonement of Jesus Christ, someone who may have been “numbered with the believers” would be chosen to walk beside the Savior in His moment of need.
According to Roman custom, a condemned man carried his cross to the place of execution. The cross—roughly hewn from common wood, perhaps olive or sycamore—was not crafted with care but with cruelty. It was a tool of shame and death, constructed hastily, sufficient only to support the weight of a man’s suffering.
“And so Jesus, bearing his cross, was led along the dolorous way to a place of burial, of skulls, of death. Four Roman soldiers went beside Him”—to humiliate him and to frighten others. A sign, hung around the Savior’s neck or carried by a soldier, declared His supposed crime.
Jesus, already scourged and sleepless, was physically weakened beyond measure. The weight of the cross was not His only burden—it represented the culmination of agony in Gethsemane, betrayal, brutality, and derision. Exhaustion and mental anguish had drained His bodily strength.
He faltered and stumbled. Then He could go no farther.
At that moment, impatient soldiers pressed Simon into service. He was not part of the procession, yet he was seized and compelled to carry the cross of Jesus.
Humiliation and Honor
To carry the cross of a condemned man was a mark of degradation. No Roman or Jew would have volunteered for such a task. Every detail of crucifixion was designed to degrade. Yet Simon bore the humiliation.
What might he have felt? Confusion? Compassion? Did he meet the Savior’s gaze? Did he sense the sacredness of the moment?
In that brief walk to Golgotha, Simon stepped into the very heart of the Passion. Could he have such an experience and not be transformed by it? Perhaps he came to Jerusalem as a pilgrim but left as a witness.
Simon had been near the Lamb of God in His final hours. He had touched the wood of the cross. The events of that day would have been very real to him as he helped carry that cross toward Calvary.
We, too, are called to bear one another’s burdens. We, too, are asked to “take up [our] cross” and walk with the Savior (see Matthew 16:24), even when the path is hard and the load is heavy. And like Simon, we may find that the burdens we bear in obedience become the greatest honor of our lives.
“To be a follower of Jesus Christ, one must sometimes carry a burden—your own or someone else’s—and go where sacrifice is required and suffering is inevitable,” said President Jeffrey R. Holland (1940–2025), President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He added, “As we take up our crosses and follow Him, it would be tragic indeed if the weight of our challenges did not make us more empathetic for and more attentive to the burdens being carried by others.”