'THE OTHER SIMON"

Today, I read a very powerful sermon with which I personally identified, based on my own experiences as an itinerant elder in the AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. That sermon was entitled "The Other Simon," from the text, Luke 23:26. The preacher was Rev. Vernon Byrd. Ironically, this preacher is the son of our late Bishop Vernon R. Byrd, who actually ordained me in 1998. Bishop said at that time that his son was also an attorney like me, who had also recently been ordained in the itineracy. I read his sermon in THE A.M.E. CHURCH REVIEW, Jan.-March, 2015 edition, that I have only recently received in the mail. I sought the sermon online, unsuccessfully, that I might share it with you. But, I could not find it, nor pull up a current issue of the journal containing it. I was, however, able to find a link to his church in Trenton, New Jersey, which I now share. http://www.philasun.com/…/grant-ame-church-of-chesilhurst-…/. Very briefly, his sermon describes the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Golgotha, when Simon of Cyrene was made to bear the cross of Christ. This was "the other Simon" referred to in the sermon, the African, the lowly one, the forgotten and despised one; this was not the more famous Simon Peter, Christ's chosen disciple, the one that is now revered; but he ran away and hid on the "via dolorossa," the way of tears, when Christ struggled under the cross's weight, alone! No, this saintly Simon Peter now widely renown was he who even thrice denied that he knew Jesus. But, this other Simon, this black man from country Cyrene, carried the Savior's cross up the hill! The "other Simon" is further analogized to those unarmed, slain black men immortalized by the "black lives matter" movement. Men like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Walter Scott, et. al. He also describes "other Simon" as those who do for Jesus, rather than pleading with Jesus to do for them. He really rocked that word! I relate to it in my own "other Simon" experiences in Butler, Missouri; and in St. Joseph, Missouri, where with a mere handful of people God yet moved in a mighty way, to the uprooting of strongholds and glorifying forgotten ones!