In this week’s pericope (google it), we read about James, the brother of John being executed. How devastating this must have been to the whole Christian community, but especially to John, his brother, and the whole Zebedee family.
Yet in the following verses, Peter gets arrested, put in jail, and then is miraculously delivered by an angel. As far as we can tell, Peter did not even get beaten during this arrest.
So, why did one of the Apostles receive freedom from his oppressors just hours after being arrested by them, and another one of the twelve seemed to have been taken into custody without any trial or advance warning, and summarily executed?
I think the answer might be hidden in plain view in the Gospels. Here is a passage from the Gospel of Mark:
Jesus said, 33 “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles; 34 and they will mock Him, and [e]scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And on the third day He will rise again.”
35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Him, saying, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask.”
36 And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?”
37 They said to Him, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.”
38 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”
39 They said to Him, “We are able.”
So Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink the cup that I drink, and with the baptism I am baptized with you will be baptized; 40 but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared.”
John, the brother of James was the youngest of all the Apostles, and he lived a very long time, in fact, some church fathers indicate he lived into his nineties. John was the only one of the eleven apostles that did not die a martyr's death, although some sources claim the Roman emperor, Domitian tried to execute him by putting him in a large pot of boiling oil in the Coliseum. Tertullian says he not only survived, but that John continued to preach the Gospel while he was in there! As soon as he emerged from the pot alive, it is said that a great number of people turned to Christ immediately.
So, as we get a “bird’s eye” view of these events, it becomes apparent that audacious prayers of James and John were answered. Of course, they were not answered as they originally desired, but of all the Apostles, they truly “sit on the right hand and the left hand” of Jesus. They did not end up in comfy ornate thrones as vice regents to King Jesus, but they did become the “bookends” to the story of the original twelve men, chosen by Jesus Christ Himself to be His disciples. James became the first (left) of the apostolic martyrs, and John was the last (right).
I could conclude this devotional with the phrase, “be careful what you pray for”, but I suspect that James and John are still thanking Jesus in Heaven for the privilege of being allowed to frame His loving sacrificial death on the cross with their own sufferings and deaths.
PRN: Lord, thank you for your perfect plan for our lives. We ask that we would be found faithful in “framing” Your goodness with our lips and our lives. We pray that You would help us to fight the good fight of faith, and finish our race well, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.
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