(AN: I personally would have liked James Bar-Zebedee to be the author of the epistle of James. Which James really wrote it, however, is known only to One.)

(Since I've finished the Nativity story, I thought I would keep the flash-back setting and re-use it here, where the events are told in remembrance when Paul and Barnabas arrive in Jerusalem.)

Drinking the Cup

44 AD

In the house of Miriam, the mother of John Mark, two strangers now approached. They knocked at the door. Young Rhoda ran out, saw who they were, and opened the door to receive them. Once they were brought in to the others, it seemed like the meeting of old friends after a long separation. Barnabas, tall with his thick beard, and Raf Sha'ul, short and bald, embraced the others and planted a kiss upon their cheeks.

"How have things been?" Paul asked, as the food was being prepared. "When we in Antioch heard about the famine, we feared the worst."

James, who was Joshua's brother, smiled and laughed. "It was nothing. The others have done admirably. We have more than enough food, we've shared what we do not need with the poor and the starving. There weren't any lack of those."

"How goes your account, young Mark?" Paul asked the youth.

"It is well, as far as memory goes," Mark replied. "But memory is not as it should be. I pray that HaShem grant me the wisdom to continue this work in a way that would glorify His Son."

"And you, Matthew," Paul continued. "I've heard you have not been idle either."

"Ah, my learned friend," he laughed. "It goes very well. Memory serves me as well as young Mark here, though there are some things I wish were different."

"Like what?" Paul asked.

"Well, for one," Matthew said. "There are still many here in Israel who are yearning to know the truth: James here knows this to be true. I want to show them that Joshua was indeed the Messiah. You know, I see so many crying out that they are the Messiah. I wish that I could take the role that the Ruach HaKodesh gave to Isaiah; 'Speak comfortably to Jerusalem and tell her that her warfare is accomplished, and that her iniquity, which is given out twice as much, is pardoned.' I would that they could see Joshua as the Messiah!"

"Well, what do you lack?" Paul asked. "I have seen first-hand how the Ruach HaKodesh imparts wisdom and the discovery of the deep meanings of the Prophets to you, the rest should be easy!"

"If only I had the Torah on hand," Matthew repeated sorrowfully. "I could quote directly from it! But no rabbi would let a member of the Way touch the Torah."

"But how are you?" Barnabas asked, addressing them all. "Many of you I see here who I remembered of old, but I miss James. Where is he? John asked for news concerning him before he left for Ephesus."

At this, all the faces fell in silence. Even Peter hung his head, his hand over his eyes and quiet sobs escaping from his lips.

"What has happened?" Paul asked.

"You would scarce believe it," Miriam said. "When the famine broke out, it struck both Jew and Gentile. The Pharisees blamed us for it."

"A lie!" Mark exclaimed. "We've done nothing but help all those in need!"

"I'm sure they know," James assured Mark, then turned to Paul and Barnabas. "There was not a word of truth in their accusations, yet Herod..."

"Which Herod is this again?" Paul asked. "I've lived in Tarsus most of my life, I don't know much regarding that dog!"

"A dog he is," James said. "His grand-father made my father and my mother quit the country and flee to Egypt, of all places, after Joshua was born, or so they told me."

"'When Israel was young I knew him, and called My Son out of Egypt.'" Matthew stated. They said nothing so much, but turned back to James.

"If anything," he said. "It was a play of politics. Herod the Great made a temple in Jerusalem, and it won to his side the Pharisees. But his grand-son, Herod Agrippa, is the incarnation of his grand-father in his behavior. He guessed that an attack on the Way would gain him the love and support of the Pharisees: and attack he did, at the very heart of our brotherhood..."

In Jerusalem, it was but a few days from Pesach, the Passover. It held an almost universal significance for the people inhabiting this ancient city. For both the Cult of the Way, the kristianos, and the sons of Israel, it was the day of the Passover. Though among the kristianos a new tradition arose: the seder of their Passover feast they held in memory of Joshua. The bread and wine was His bread and blood, poured out for the 'new' covenant.

In one house, there remained a single man, a single voice. That voice had spoken the loudest against the corruption in the Sanhedrin, and the godlessness among those who were the Chosen. He whose heart once raged in anger against the people of Samaria for rejecting Joshua, now lifted up his voice to praise Him and to call sinners to repentance.

Now he sat in a room with Matthew, the one who knew the Torah. He had an earnest question to ask of him, of one who could quote passages from it as easily as water flowed out of a cloth vase.

"Recently," James Bar-Zebedee said. "I have been pondering the words of Joshua."

"Which words were those?" Matthew asked. "I mean, after all, you were closer to him than the rest of us, save for Peter and John. You would know more than I."

"I think you were there too," James said. "Do you remember that one time, when my mother..." He laughed. "Brought John and I before Joshua and asked Him to make us sit at His left and right in the Kingdom?"

They both laughed.

"That was a bold request!" Matthew said.

"Too bold, apparently," James returned. "Joshua told her she had no idea what she was asking."

"But, see, that was the thing," Matthew continued. "He told us that the greatest among us must become our servants. For the Son of Man comes to serve, not to be served. And that, my dear James, is what we have been doing all this time! Serving the poor, the sick, the hungry, those who wish to know the good news about Joshua! You yourself have been of great help to me: you told me what happened that night in Gethsemane, and there's a lot from before I was called to follow Him that you have helped fill in. Would that I had the Torah, then this account will be finished and can be distributed to all, that they may know that He was, is the Messiah!"

James was quiet through all of this.

"What's wrong, old man?" Matthew laughed.

"You're not young either, my friend," James mirthlessly returned. "I daresay my little brother is almost thirty by now. Where is he, I wonder?"

"If I hear any news," Matthew said. "You will be the first I tell." Yet he saw that James' face did not rise. "What is it now? Your mother, at least, believes, is it your father?"

"No, it's not that," James shook his head.

"Then what is it that darkens your countenance?"

"The words of Joshua," James continued. "There was more to what Joshua said, that time of which I spoke. He asked John and I...if we were willing to be baptized in the same fashion as He, and to drink the cup that He was to drink."

"This is what brings your face low?" Matthew asked in disbelief. "What happened to 'fire from Heaven', the son of Thunder and everything?"

"I am not what I once was," James returned. "I have changed, that is certain. Yet, I know, I am better off for it."

"We all are," Matthew returned with a laugh. "But what is it about His words that trouble you?"

"I answered...we answered too hastily," James said. "I remember, while I was trying to stay awake in Gethsemane, He was praying, crying to His Father, asking for the cup to be taken away from Him. When He came back and woke us up, I saw a sheen of blood, like sweat, dripping off His face. If I had known such pain would be mine for accepting His sacrifice, I know not how hastily I would have answered, but..."

"But what?" Matthew asked.

James shook his head. "Nothing. It was good to see you again, my friend. Shalom and may HaShem bless and keep you."

Seeing that they were now sundered, Matthew nodded and went on his way, gathering up his cloak and hood before leaving the room. He left the streets, finding them rather deserted, and made haste to where he was staying. He shut the door behind him, then woke Thomas up and continued with their work on his account. Thomas, it seemed, proved very helpful in recounting details that had slipped Matthew's mind at the time, and Matthew was the level-headed scholarly one, but it seemed as though there was a third person among them, one who guided pen and tongue to the right words that they wrote. The Ruach HaKodesh.

Suddenly, there was a loud banging on the door. Thomas ran to the door and returned moments later with Salome, sobbing and breathing like she had run the marathon of old.

"What's happened?" Matthew asked.

"James is dead," she sobbed.

It hit them like a ton of bricks. The death of Stephen was not unmourned by any of the Way, yet to hear that James, one so beloved of Joshua, one so close to the words of His mouth, had been killed...

"No, it-it can't be!" Matthew retorted. "I was just with him! I was speaking with him, he was in the fullness of health!"

"They killed him!" she returned.

"Who?" Thomas asked.

"Herodians," she began. "I saw it happen, as I was on my way from the market. They dragged him out of his house and threw him into the sand, there were some Pharisees gathered there. I heard him say: 'I am ready now' over and over, then they..." She cried. "They ran him through...with their swords!"

Thomas put his arm around her, trying to comfort her, a stark contrast to how he alienated himself from them after Joshua's resurrection.

"The Pharisees," Salome continued. "Were happy. They were paying the Herodians, when one of them refused their gold, threw down his sword and called on His name, begging to be saved, to be pardoned, and they killed him too! They killed him too! Oh, it was too much!"

Matthew, meanwhile, sat himself down, his face in his hands, trying to wrap his mind around what had happened. It was just hours ago that he had spoken with James, laughed with him, reminisced on when Joshua walked with them and they knew perfect peace, discussed His words, even as their fore-fathers had been commanded to discuss the words of the Torah by Moses, as if he were his brother. No, for he was as dear a brother to him as Alphaeus' son James had been: for seven years, from when He first called them to the death of Stephen, they had walked together, talked together, lived together, broken bread together, camped at night under the same stars, endured the stormy lake of Galilee together and sundry persecutions from the Sanhedrin. Now he was gone: the eldest of the sons of thunder would thunder for Joshua the Messiah and the good news no more.

What was worse was that it dawned just then upon Matthew that they were not all that safe. They feared for their lives after Stephen had been martyred, and thanked HaShem for the peace that followed. But now one who was closest to Joshua was dead. But He said that they would not taste death until they had seen the Son of Man coming. Then again, John would not die, or so Matthew believed. He was safe in Antioch, or wherever he was now. But his brother was dead, and now, that one of those who had been closest to Joshua had been struck down, God alone knew who would be the next to give his life for this good news.

"Simeon Bar-Jonah," announced Blastus, the majordomo to Herod Agrippa. "Alias Peter."

Herod's soldiers brought the graying fisherman forward, chained between them. Herod and those of the Sanhedrin who were gathered here in his palace laughed and applauded. Whether it was in mockery of this, the head of the Cult of the Way, or whether it was sycophantic praise for Herod's play to the Sanhedrin, none could rightly guess. They stood at last before the king, with their prisoner between them. He held out one hand, then rose up and approached the fisherman. Peter's heart stopped, for he feared now that he might suffer the same fate as James: what would he say? The words of Joshua that John had quoted on their first day before the Sanhedrin came to mind.

"Do you know who I am?" Herod asked.

"Yes," Peter nodded.

"Good," Herod smiled. "Then I trust there will be no feeble attempts to dissuade me. I am not the weak man my father was, quailing under the words of hairy wild-men from the wilderness." He looked Peter straight on, face-to-face.

"I had James killed," he announced. "And I will kill you just as easily. Nothing personal, I might add: I don't give a goat's ass about their God or your Messiah or even the gods my grandfather worshiped. It's just good politics. My father was afraid of every charlatan with a good voice, but I? I have the golden tongue of Apollos."

All the while Peter remained silent.

"I tire of his presence already," Herod said. "Take him away, put him in the dungeon."

"But, Your Majesty," a rabbi by the name of Ananias, a favorite acolyte of the aged Caiaphas, spoke up. "He is the leader of the Cult of the Way. They might break and try to take him out of your hands!"

"Not with four companies guarding his cell, they won't!" Herod returned.

"Isn't that a bit much?" the prince, also called Agrippa, asked.

"Never underestimate these cultists, my son." Herod said. "If you're not careful, they'll hoodwink even you!"

"Your Majesty," rabbi Ananias continued. "How long until he is done away with?"

"After the Passover," Herod assured the rabbi. "I will have him executed in public."

(AN: And with that, we close James' part in the story. He drank the cup, just as he said he would.)