Simon the Cyrene - Matt 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26

Pilate has officially “washed” Christ’s blood from his hands, but does consent to allow Jesus to be crucified, which must be quite a sight to those who watched from above, knowing full well that Jesus didn’t need Pilate to save nor condemn him. Let’s just remember that not only has Jesus suffered for all the sins and pains of all beings within the universe, but he’s also been tortured to the point that would have killed anyone else. Traditionally, Romans would take those sentenced to death from the judgment hall to the hill of execution with the condemned carrying their own cross.

An article on patheos.com notes that there were five different methods of crucifixion, all incredibly horrible. We are only going to talk about the one affecting Jesus, which was the “traditionally shaped cross,” meaning that there was an upright pole sticking out of the ground, and a shorter wooden piece that was carried up the hill by the victim before being fastened to it. Wikipedia has cited that this part of the cross weighed about 100 pounds and given the amount of physical suffering that Jesus had already endured, he was probably moving very slowly up the hill. Romans are not known to be patient with their prisoners, so they grab one of the closest guys, “Simon a Cyrenian… to bear his cross.” I’ve always thought that it was interesting that if they were in such a hurry, then why didn’t they just pick it up themselves, it’s always bothered me that they got someone who wasn’t even involved and made them suffer.
Another aspect of Simon carrying Jesus’ cross that I have never understood was why could Jesus be helped carrying his cross up the hill if he had to bear all things himself, why didn’t this simply act of help not negate the atonement? I guess when we put it that way, it seems kind of ridiculous that something so small could make or break eternal salvation for all of us. But later when we get into the water vs. vinegar thing, we see that Jesus could receive no help, could have absolutely nothing that could have relieved his suffering, but here, Simon was able to carry his cross up the hill.
If we consider this Satan’s greatest, most powerful moment, the only time when he could unleash whatever he could dream up onto Jesus, then we have to consider the fact that Satan knew that Jesus wasn’t going to give up walking up the hill. He didn’t care if someone else carried the heavy piece of wood for him because that wasn’t the deal breaker, after all that Jesus went through up until that point, Satan knew that slowly walking up a hill wasn’t going to matter at all, and in fact, if Jesus went slowly up the hill, then he might recover some of his strength.
I imagine the part of the atonement where Jesus is suffering for our sins personally, but all the other stuff, the “filler” stuff, the torture, the mockery, Satan and Heavenly Father standing together with God saying, “what else you got? What else do you think will break him?” And Satan saying, “well, what about this? What about that? What about torturing him afterward? What about murdering him in the most cruel way ever devised? What about telling him he’s stupid? What about telling him that no one will ever believe him or use his sacrifice? What about telling him that this is all for nothing?” I think that Satan probably saw Jesus slowly carrying his own cross up the hill as a respite from his suffering, and whatever it took to get him into agony sooner was acceptable. If any of that makes sense.