The Ten Stages of Christ’s Suffering:  Stage 6

Stage 6:  They led Him away to crucify Him

The crossbeam of the cross was affixed to Jesus’s shoulders.  The severe scourging that Jesus had endured and sheer exhaustion combined caused Him to stumble and fall under the weight of the cross.  As he attempted His slow trek up Golgotha’s Hill, he could not bear the cross’s weight.  The Bible tells us in Luke 23:26 that he received assistance with the cross.  

²⁶ And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.

Dear friend, each of us who are followers of Christ will have our cross to bear.  The size, shape, or weight of our crosse is uniquely designed to make us into the image of Christ.  

Luke 9:23-24 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

The first stanza of a song by Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, entitled Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone? says: 

Must Jesus bear the cross alone 

And all the world go free, 

No, there is a cross for everyone 

And there’s a cross for me.

Yes, Saints, we all have a cross to bear if we are going to make it into the Kingdom of God.  1 Peter 4:7 says:  

Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;