Sinclair B. Ferguson

Well, our instinctive reaction might be, well, who were Alexander and Rufus?

And of course, that's the point.

Mark's first readers and hearers probably didn't need to ask that question.

They probably thought, you mean he was the father of Alexander and Rufus?

I suspect Mark's words can mean only one thing.

Alexander and Rufus must have become Christians.

And that reminds me of something hidden away in the closing greetings of Paul's great letter to the Romans.

You remember that long list of names in Romans 16?

Well, here's Romans 16 verse 13.

Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well.

This is surely too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.

It looks as though the first crucifer, cross-bearer, Simon of Cyrene, actually became a believer, as did his wife and his sons.

God's grace reached his son Rufus and transformed his mother.

Simon's wife became a real mother in Israel, and now apparently she was in Rome.

Paul had never been to Rome, so he must have met her elsewhere.

A moment that turned Simon's plans for the day upside down and forced him to head in another direction than the one he intended actually turned his whole life and that of his family in the right direction.

His plans for his own life that day and every day afterwards evaporated.

And that day he began to take his first steps to fulfilling Jesus' words.

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.