Saint James the Greater: Giving Up Everything to Follow Jesus

I often wonder what it would be like to give up everything and follow Jesus. James the Greater did just that. He and his brother John were working on one of their father’s fishing boats when Jesus called them, and “they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him” (Mark 1:20). James and John didn’t create a strategic plan, weigh the risks, or calculate the cost. They simply responded in faith. We’re not told how Zebedee reacted, but I imagine he might have felt angry, confused, or even resentful that his sons left him so suddenly. Nevertheless, this initial sacrifice of James and his brother indicates that Jesus Christ must come first in all things – if we are to follow the Gospel.

James, the son of Zebedee, was among the twelve apostles of Our Lord. Alongside John and Peter, he was privileged to witness the Transfiguration (Matt 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28), the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29), and the raising of Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:37; Luke 8:51). He was also called to watch and pray with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane the night before the crucifixion (Matt 26:37; Mark 14:33).

Through James, we learn that the privilege of following Jesus comes at great personal cost—but the reward is priceless. Like the others, James abandoned Jesus during his bleakest hour. Yet Christ, in mercy, still entrusted him with a vital role in the early Church. James must have been a powerful and prominent figure—so much so that he was the first of the apostles to be martyred, executed by order of King Herod Agrippa I. Herod, the grandson of Herod the Great (who tried to kill the infant Jesus) and nephew of Herod Antipas (who executed John the Baptist and examined Jesus), sought to suppress the Gospel with violence. James proclaimed Christ at a time when power was hoarded by the elite, and coercion, fear, and control were the tools of governance. Yet James followed a Gospel that uplifted the poor and the marginalized, a Gospel that threatened those systems—and for it, he paid the ultimate price.

Most of us reading this reflection will never be called to martyrdom in the same way. But we are still called to follow James’s example of selfless faith. So how do we do that?

We begin with the obvious: feeding the hungry, participating in church ministries, showing up where help is needed. These are good and holy acts. But the deeper call to martyrdom may lie in the quieter moments of self-denial: when we relinquish our need to be right in a meeting, when we allow someone else to take the lead on a project, when we cheer for another’s success even if we longed for the recognition ourselves. Dying to self is a form of spiritual martyrdom. It is saying “yes” to God’s will over our own, again and again.

Sometimes, it is more difficult to be humble than to be heroic. We may never receive the credit we believe we deserve. We may be passed over for the position we want. But if, in those moments, we can let the humility of Christ shape our response, we participate in a kind of daily martyrdom that transforms our hearts and communities.

As Christians, we are called to live in the world without being consumed by it. The world urges us to pursue power, recognition, and control. But James the Greater reminds us to pursue God’s will above our own. He lived—and died—for the Gospel. So can we.