First to Fall: The Martyrdom of a Faithful Brother

Not Our Will, But Yours Be Done!

About that time, King Herod Agrippa began to persecute some believers in the church. He had the apostle James (John’s brother) killed with a sword. -Acts 12:1-2

From Peter

Wailing hushed all other sounds the day we found his lifeless body.

I could hardly bring myself to look into his brother’s eyes! Such a devoted companion James had been to him. The hundreds of hours they’d fished together in Zebedee’s boat as boys. The day Jesus passed by them and called to them, “Follow Me!” they didn’t flinch. They looked at one another, then at their father, and they knew the answer. No words required, they rarely needed words when it was so clear. They dropped everything. They locked proverbial arms and followed.

“Sons of Thunder,” Jesus called them. A name earned and deserved. They fed off each other. They were better together. They were half a man apart. Together, they thrived.

A lifetime of days and nights and pain and joy had been theirs from boys. And there we stood, looking down at a motionless James—the energy, the passion, the determination, drained by a sword from his lifeless, decapitated body.

John fell to the ground in anguish and unthinkable grief. Life sank to my toes as I watched him wail. I had been their leader. I had charged them with proclaiming the euangelion that the Kingdom had come. Although I knew it was what the Rabbi commanded, my greatest fear was realized that day. I wish I could change things.

Helpless.

Guilty.

Should I have intervened? Should I have taken the sword in his place? Should I have fought? I couldn’t help but want to run as fast and as far as I could, as images rushed through my head of all that we had been through together!

Leaving businesses, homelands, family, friends, security, houses, beds. Continuing to follow the Rabbi despite the heavy demands, long days, sleepless nights, hunger, thirst, exhaustion. Sticking together when things didn’t make sense. When our expectations were not met, and our ambitions were crushed.

Seeing our innocent Rabbi beaten, mocked, persecuted, and executed. Experiencing the elation of seeing him heal the sick, cast out demons, rebuke the religious, forgive the sinners, rise from the dead.

We knew it was coming.

We expected at any moment for one of us to die. But to expect it and experience it are altogether different. We all thought it would be me. And in many ways, I wish it were. The loud-mouthed, obnoxious contrarion who had more passion than sense. James had his moments, too. The three of us, as Jesus’ inner circle, were always the loudest and first to speak. But, James?!

We had suffered so much together.

And not just together with the three, but together with us! “Us” seems like such an insufficient description of what we were. We were more than a group of men. We were HIS men! We walked with Him. We protected Him. We loved Him. Those 12 and a few more. Perpetually eating together, praying together, suffering together, celebrating together.

And Now DYING TOGETHER!

He became the first. Stripped by the sword from our band of missionaries. Brutally ripped from the mission we pursued together as we gave everything trying to stay true to the Messiah’s request to “FOLLOW ME.”

Oh, we had been threatened before. We had been beaten, thrown into prison, spat upon, and kicked out of town. The physical pain was extreme, but like a drop in a cup next to an ocean of pain of seeing great people reject the True Messiah.

But through it all, we were still TOGETHER!

Jesus said that the love we experience for one another would show the whole world that we are His. That’s why we were relentlessly committed to togetherness, if for no other, to be utterly committed to the NEW commandment He gave us the night before his capture.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34-35

But the three!

We were three but one - a warrior band. “Peter, James, and John,” the others would say with a bit of contempt and a shade of jealous envy. Say what you will, we were committed to serve the Messiah till our last breath was drawn. And there we found ourselves, at least one of us, having breathed his last.

I couldn’t help it. When I gazed into John’s eyes, tears began to flow. Gasping for breath, no words came - only shrieks. The Sons of Thunder, the sons of Zebedee, the brothers, were torn apart too early, not by the sword of a madman, but by the King of Judah.

How will we press on?

Who would be next?

Sleepless nights imagining what it might be like to lose one of us fell savagely short of preparing us to stand tall over that mound of flesh and accept the fact that the time had come.

The purging had begun.

Father. My spirit is willing - my flesh is weak. I beg of You! Please let this cup pass from us. Nevertheless, not our will, but Yours be done. Into your hands we commit our spirits.