Luke 23:26
[26] As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.

(Mark 15:21
[21] 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.)

The study book has chosen to focus on just one verse today. It’s often a throwaway verse, which can be missed in all the drama surrounding its place in the final few hours of Jesus’ life. Mark gives a little more detail, in naming Simon’s children - Alexander and Rufus. The question is, how does Mark, from Jerusalem, know Alexander and Rufus, who are from modern day Libya? The likely answer is that they became Christians. So, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and forced to carry a massive crossbeam in the place of a man who had been beaten to the point of death, looks to have set his whole family on the path of believing in Jesus Christ. It encourages me (and is the reason I’ve ‘put myself out there’ by sharing with you this Lent journey I’m going through) that just one ‘chance’ event, sometimes just one throwaway comment, can be what inspires someone to want to know more about the gospel of Christ