James, Son of Zebedee

James was the elder of Zebedee’s sons, partner with his brother John and with Simon and Andrew in a Capernaum fishing business substantial enough to employ hired men. Called mid-shift, mending nets, the brothers “left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him” (Mark 1:19-20). Jesus nicknamed the pair Boanerges – “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17) – and they spent the Gospels earning it: proposing to call fire down on an inhospitable Samaritan village (Luke 9:54), and lobbying, mother in tow, for the thrones at Jesus’ right and left (Mark 10:35-45).

Yet James belonged to the inner three. With Peter and John he saw what the other nine did not: Jairus’ daughter raised, the Transfiguration, and the agony in Gethsemane a stone’s throw closer than the rest (Mark 5:37; 9:2; 14:33). When he asked for a throne, Jesus asked back, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” James said he was able, and Jesus took him at his word: “The cup that I drink you will drink” (Mark 10:38-39).

He drank it first. “Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword” (Acts 12:1-2) – around AD 44, the first of the Twelve to be martyred, dispatched in a single verse. The thunder had been tamed into something stronger: a man who could die without a speech. Spanish tradition later carried his memory to Compostela, making the fisherman Europe’s most walked-to saint.

In the New Testament

• Called from the nets; Son of Thunder (Mark 1:19-20; 3:17)
• The inner circle: Jairus’ house, the Transfiguration, Gethsemane (Mark 5:37; 9:2; 14:33)
• Fire on Samaria; the request for thrones (Luke 9:51-56; Mark 10:35-45)
• Martyred under Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:1-2)