Life and Death for an Apostle

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

July 25, 2023 - Celebrating St. James, the Apostle

2 Corinthians 4:7-15; Matthew 20: 20-28

We believe; so we speak! That was the watchword of the band of apostles, as St. Paul notes in the first reading today (2 Cor 4:13). Though there was a time when even the apostles did not understand what Jesus was upto... they looked at Jesus like any other leader, carrying forward his career! But in time, Jesus made them understand that they are called to follow, a leader who was 'crazy' in the terms of the world, a man who was full of contradictions. Whoever among you would be the great must be a servant, and who would be the first must be a slave. 

James and John today become the occasion for Jesus to reinstate his philosophy of life, indeed a tough one. St. Paul, though he came late into the fold, understood that philosophy perfectly and he expressed it lucidly when he said, we carry within our bodies the death of Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be manifested in us. He says, death was at work in the lives of Apostles, so that life can be experienced by those to whom they carried the message. 

When we would think it is important to abandon death and seek life, the apostles seemingly seek death, to give life! And they invite the others to believe and once they believe, the believers too seek to carry within themselves the death of Jesus, so that the world may receive life in Christ. That is the chain of apostleship that is passed on to us... to be apostles is to carry the death of Jesus within us, that we may ultimately manifest the eternal life in Jesus to the world. 

James, the first of the apostles to be put to death (Acts 12:2) bears a resounding witness to this way of life; a life of contradiction; the life of apostleship, a life that is all about giving one's entire life, that the others may have life in all its fullness.