Re-presenting Christ
All of us – lay persons, bishops, priests and deacons – “represent Christ and his Church,” according to our Outline of the Faith. To break it down by syllables, all of us are called to re-present the risen Christ, so that our words and actions point to him. When we celebrate the feasts of individual saints, we celebrate them because they were particularly memorable in re-presenting and pointing to Christ Jesus.
James the son of Zebedee didn’t always do a good job of representing Jesus. The nickname that Jesus gave him and his brother of John, “Sons of Thunder,” or in Greek Bonaerges, may not have been entirely complimentary. When Jesus wanted to travel through Samaria on his way to Jerusalem, the Samaritans who hated the Jews as much as the Jews hated them, refused to receive him. Whereupon James and John volunteered to call down fire on them, and Jesus had to rebuke them. And using their mother to gain influence with Jesus is hardly pointing to the same Jesus who replies that he has come to serve, not to demand service or dole out patronage.
But James would come to re-present and point to Christ Jesus, the King, by his death. The background is that Herod Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great who tried to kill the baby Jesus, was making a play for himself to be acclaimed as the Christ, the Messiah, the true Anointed king of Israel. Those who were vocally supporting Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah had to be done away with.
But here’s the rest of the story from Acts. Peter miraculously escaped from Jerusalem. Agrippa then went north to Caesarea (the city of Caesar) and appeared at an assembly in which his robes were so splendid that someone in the crowd was inspired to cry, “A god is speaking,” which Herod didn’t contradict. According to Acts, Herod was struck down by an illness that in a few days killed him. So, one way or another, his hubris was exposed, while the martyred James is celebrated by the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
James represented the Son of Man who tells us today that he has come to give his life to ransom us from whatever causes us to be alienated from God and each other, lost in our fear, disappointment, anger. In giving his life, James represented and pointed to Jesus the Christ.
I don’t wish for myself, or for any of you, to ever have to represent Christ Jesus as James had to. And too many American Christians have mistaken our cultural arguments as persecution or even harbingers of martyrdom, when what they’re really afraid of is losing their majority status. I’ve witnessed the scars left by those who claimed to love the sinner but hate the sin, or who wielded the phrase, “I’ll pray for you,” not as a profession of love, but a decree of judgment.
I’m not saying that any of us is without sin. But we are called to meet people where they are, to re-present the love of Jesus Christ, and point to him, so that in his light people may see the truth of their need for repentance and of God the Father’s infinite love and mercy revealed by God the Son. It isn’t for us to overthrow the hubris of others. Our call is to be a witness, or “martyr,” in whatever way necessary to reveal God’s love and God’s truth, and leave the hubris to the God who created all persons out of nothing but infinite love.
July 27th, 2025
Patronal Feast of St. James the Apostle
The Rev. David Kendrick