ST. JAMES – APOSTOLIC PROTOMARTYR
Feast of St. James
25 July, AD 2010
TEXT: St. Matthew 20:20 – 28.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
“But Jesus answered and said . . . Are ye able to drink the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.” (St. Matthew 20:22).
These words, which we just heard from St. Matthew’s Gospel, are part of an exchange between Jesus and two of His Apostles from the time in His ministry in which He has set His face to go to Jerusalem for His ultimate Glorification upon the Cross. He is speaking to James and John whose mother, Salome, asked a favour of Jesus regarding the disposition of her two sons when Jesus brings about His new Kingdom upon the earth. But before we delve into the rest of that exchange we need to solidify in our minds the James to whom Jesus is speaking.
In Holy Scripture we find at least three “Jameses” who were active and important in the early Church. The first is known as James the Just or James the Bishop of Jerusalem, who presided over the Council of Jerusalem around AD 50. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, calls him, along with John and Peter a “pillar” of the Church and some scholars believed, formerly, that this was the James to whom Jesus was speaking in St. Matthew’s Gospel. But for reasons that we will see shortly, this James is not the same person. Secondly, from the list of Holy Apostles in the synoptic Gospels and Acts, we see that there is a James, the son of Alpheus. Could this be the James to whom Jesus is speaking? No. Well, that leaves only one James; James the brother of John, who were nicknamed by Jesus, the Sons of Thunder, whose father was Zebedee, a Galilean fisherman. The Church has differentiated between the two Apostles named James by calling one James the Greater and the other, James the Less. A better, more accurate appellation would probably be James the Elder and James the Younger; for in every list of Apostles, James is listed before his brother, John which would tend to indicate that he was the elder brother of the two. So it is that it is the witness of St. James the elder, brother of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist, that the Church celebrates and remembers this day. Well, what do we know about this James and what was his relationship with Our Lord as one of the Twelve?
We know that James the Elder was one of the Twelve Apostles; that he made up a special “inner circle” of Jesus’ closest followers along with John, his brother, and Peter; that he was a successful Galilean fisherman like his brother, John, and father Zebedee and their partners, Peter and Andrew; and that his mother’s name was, most likely, Salome, who not only became a follower of Jesus Christ, herself, but was present at our Lord’s Crucifixion, and accompanied the other women to the tomb on the morning of the third day. We also know that on three very different, but important occasions, St. James accompanied Peter and John with Jesus to the Mount of Transfiguration, was present with Jesus at the raising of Jairus’ daughter, and was with Jesus during His Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is obvious that Jesus wanted him close so as to teach him the true cost of discipleship and what it meant to be an Apostle.
Much like Andrew did for his brother, Peter, we think it is St. John who brought his brother, James to Jesus. What is even more probable is that James’ mother, Salome, was a sister of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as we find when we read the accounts of the women at the foot of Jesus’ cross from the synoptic Gospels. If that is so, then James, John, and Jesus are first cousins, at least partially, maybe half-first cousins. How ever, or even if he was, indeed, related by blood, it is clear that Jesus knew St. James, along with his brother, John, when he called them into His service by the Sea of Galilee to be fishers of men.
Like Simon’s nickname was Peter, meaning “rock”, James and John had nicknames also. They were called “Sons of Thunder”, probably because of their fiery dispositions and the fact that they often spoke with one voice. This is clearly evident in an incident recorded in St. Luke’s Gospel, which could be a parallel to the Gospel for today. Jesus has sent messengers on ahead of Him and His band to a certain Samaritan village on the way to Jerusalem so that they could prepare for Jesus’ arrival. But the people there did not welcome Jesus because He was going on to Jerusalem. It is then that both James and John asked Our Lord, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them even as Esias did? But Jesus turned to them and said, Ye know not what spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” Many scholars think it was this incident that earned James and John the nickname “Sons of Thunder” but it could also be that their voices thundered like the voice of God as they spread the Gospel after Jesus’ Ascension!
Another “nickname” that St. James received is that of Apostolic Protomartyr. Apostolic, meaning that he was one of the Twelve and Protomartyr, meaning that he was the first of the Apostles to be martyred for the Faith. It was in the year of Our Lord 43 or 44 that St. James died for the Gospel that he loved so well. His death, the only account of the death of one of the Apostles, is recorded in Acts, chapter 12, verses 1 through 3 which reads, “Now about that time Herod the king, (whom we know as Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great), stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also.” As you remember, Peter, was miraculously freed from prison, but James, received a martyr’s crown very early. What, therefore, is St. James’ witness to us? Why is he important to our own spiritual journey? For that we turn to the Gospel for the day.
In the twentieth chapter of St. Matthew, at the twentieth verse, Jesus has set His face to go to Jerusalem and has begun the long journey that will take Him into Jerusalem for the last time. It is while Jesus and the Twelve with His entourage are on the way that Salome, not James or John, but their mother approaches Jesus and asks Him for a favour for her two sons. St. Matthew records, “Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.” She asked nothing for herself, but only for her two sons. Like any mother, she wanted them to be the very best and to have the very best. Yet she misinterpreted, like the Apostles did many times, what the nature of the Kingdom of God and that of discipleship was all about. Jesus didn’t rebuke her, as He often did the Apostles, but simply asked James and John, “Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? And they said unto him, We are able.” Then Jesus said to the brothers, “Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.” Then Jesus takes the opportunity to teach about true discipleship to all Twelve Apostles as He said, “ . . . but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of Man came to not ne ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” That is Christian discipleship in a nutshell. And that is the last time Jesus spoke of the cost of discipleship before He entered with them into Jerusalem. It is of prime importance to us because Jesus seized the brothers’ request for a place of prominence and used it to teach them and the other Apostles one of His greatest lessons on the relationship between humility and Christian service. But perhaps the most important aspect of St. James’ witness to our Lord and what His life models for us so clearly is found in his life as a whole.
We have come to know that Jesus didn’t care so much for outward appearances. It is what is inside of a person that matters to Him. In the same way, Jesus was more concerned about the qualification for Apostolic Office than He was for the dignity of it. As Herbert Lockyer says of St. James, “Jesus sought to prepare James and the rest by discipline and by learning. It was for no arbitrary reason that Christ allowed a year to elapse before He permitted James to pass from discipleship to apostleship. This “son of thunder” had to learn that the higher the calling the harder the discipline fitting one for it. Apostles were not born, but made: “I will make you.” . . . So as James followed and served, he learned, and became a workman who had no need to be ashamed.” From that quote we see that from a purely human understanding of events, James’ faith in Jesus eventually transformed his limitations into strengths; strengths that enabled him to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ as far as Spain, possibly, before he returned to Jerusalem to gain a martyr’s crown. If we take anything away from St. James’ witness as an Apostle of Our Lord it would be that Jesus can take our own purely human understanding and limitations of both spirit and personality and can transform them, by faith, into strengths such that He then can use for the spread of His Kingdom here in this place at this time to His honour and glory. We may not be called to ever have to die for Our Faith in Jesus Christ, nor should we ever seek it outright, but we can die to self and let Jesus transform us as we embrace and pray for a never-ceasing zeal and love for our Lord and His Gospel as we live our lives as witnesses to our Christian Faith and give them to others so that they may also live in Christ. Let us pray.
O glorious Apostle, St. James, who by reason of thy fervent and generous heart wast chosen by Jesus to be a witness of His glory on Mount Tabor, and of His agony in Gethsemane; thou, whose very name is a symbol of wisdom and faith: obtain for us strength and consolation in the unending struggles of this life, that, having constantly and generously followed Jesus, we may be victors in the strife and deserve to receive the victor's crown in heaven. In the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due this day both now and forever; world without end. Amen.