Fact – In the bible, we have read the story of how Jesus Christ was crucified. During his journey holding the cross, a man named Simon is asked to help him handle this burden.
My story – I had a thought where I utilize this story and tweak it adding some magic to it (Quotha). It is not meant to hurt anyone and is plainly fiction. I hope you like it.
Introduction – Simon is 21 and is a rebel. He is not regular at church and his faith day by day is reducing. His parents are worried but Simon wouldn’t listen. They’d pray and hope he doesn’t lose God.
They were looking for a moment of Quotha.
There was a time when a young Simon had so many questions about Jesus and the cross. He’d ask, “Maa, why does Jesus drag his own cross with so much difficulty? Is it so heavy? His mother would always tell him, “Son, the cross signifies all our sins. Jesus held it. You too someday will have to hold your own cross. The more you sin, the more your cross would be heavier”.
Simon now would find everything either funny or illogical. Hoping to bring his spiritual roots back, they traveled to the Holy land of Jerusalem. Simon loved traveling so he didn’t make a fuss.
It was the holy week and as they were exploring the city, there was a passion play that was running. The parents walked up and a visibly frustrated Simon walked with them.
The passion play had reached till the part where the actor portraying the role of Jesus falls with the cross. He then looks at the crowd and yells “Simon, please help me”. It was a tradition that any guest could play the part of Simon and help Jesus hold the cross.
Looking at this, Simon’s mother pushes him and asks that he help Jesus by holding the cross. Now, Simon didn’t like this one bit but he saw everyone around him calling his name and asking that he helps Jesus.
Having no other option, he goes ahead and helps with holding the cross. Behind him, Jesus helped hold the cross while being slashed with a whip by the guards.
Simon found it funny as the cross was very light. He thought, “Let me run with the cross and see the look on these people’s faces”. That’s when the cross started feeling a bit heavier.
He turned around to see if the guy portraying as Jesus was keeping his whole weight on the cross but that was not the case.
The cross started getting heavier with each step Simon took.
He started walking slowly and slowly.
He started sweating. The guards kept hitting Jesus and the pain made him cry out loudly. Hearing that, Simon shouted back “Back off, he’s already in pain”.
Simon’s back started hurting but he kept walking. He just didn’t know how this cross could all of a sudden weigh so much. His mind was confusing him with thoughts whose answers he didn’t have.
That’s when he remembered his mother’s words to him as a child – “Son, the cross signifies all our sins. Jesus held it. You too someday will have to hold your own cross. The more you sin, the more your cross would be heavier”.
Simon was surprised (Quotha). He started shaking. This could not be happening. While walking with such a shock, he heard a voice from behind, ” I shall help you hold this cross, my son”.
Those words stayed with Simon. In a while, after he passed on the cross back to the actor and the play got over, Simon was quiet. His parents felt that he might any moment shout at forcing him to be part of the play.
But Simon had doubts. He was not ready to believe what happened here was an act of divination. So he went back after the play was over and checked the cross that he held.
“It is light” he said.
His mother said, “Yes son, it is. But you acted so well pretending that it was so heavy”.
Simon was so shocked (Quotha) and his mother sensed it. She had just asked and Simon cried, narrating the entire story.
He thought his mother would declare him as insane but his mother replied, “I trust you.”. Remember son, the Lord works in mysterious ways. No matter what you do in this life, in the end, you have to hold your cross. The cross would be heavy or light depending on what you did in this lifetime.
This post is written as part of the annual A to Z Challenge where for each day of April (except Sundays) I shall write a post based on the part of the letter of 26 alphabets. Today’s choice was Quotha.
I have been participating in this challenge since 2015. To read more of my posts from the A to Z Challenge