As many of you know, there is a delegation from our church making plans to travel to Poland late this summer on a short-term mission trip. We have been invited to work with John Crozier and his wife, Zaba, in a youth camp and at a church, they helped establish there. John is a graduate of Clarion - Goldfield High School and lived the middle years of his growing up days in Clarion. The couple has two young sons, David and Thomas.

Today's Karen's Korner is something John wrote and emailed to me the first part of this week:

"A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross."     Mark 15.21

A few thoughts have been following me around this Easter about why Mark included the words "father of Alexander and Rufus" when recording the facts of that awful day. What meaning could they possibly have had placed next to the horrible suffering of the Christ.  Could it be that Mark, writing around thirty years after the crucifixion, knew the readers of his account were personally acquainted with them.  Think about it.  Could it be that these men, who were small boys when dad was forced to carry the Roman cross,  were now followers of the Christ? 

I wonder, as Simon's wife unpacked his bags after returning from Jerusalem, if she saw his blood-stained clothes that had been pressed up against the Messiah?  I wonder, as they sat down for supper that night, if Simon through clouded eyes shared with his wife about his short journey on the Via Dolorossa - the "way of suffering" - with the Messiah.  I wonder if he repeated the words he might have heard from the cross to his wife; "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do"? 

And as he lay down with his two boys before they went to sleep did he tell them about the bustling city of Jerusalem?  Did he dare tell them about the Roman guards, their long spears prodding a "Lamb being led to slaughter" - an image so clear for young boys those days? 

Did his short time with the Messiah on the Via Dolorossa that fateful day change his life?  I wonder.  Did his boys grow up and follow the Lamb they had heard about after Simon's return from Jerusalem that Easter weekend?

Could Paul, in writing a letter to the church in Rome, have been referring to Simon's family when he wrote in closing; "Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too."

Could it be true that Simon got close enough to the Messiah to truly understand forgiveness for the first time that first Easter? 

I write with my own boys in mind; their young lives stretching before them.  Maybe Rufus and Alexander were their ages when Simon left for the Passover in Jerusalem.  I write with my boys in mind; hoping and praying that my 'experience' of forgiveness and hope found in the Lamb on the Via Dolorossa will become theirs one day. . .