It was slow to dawn on me, but it did finally occur that St. Jean is French for St. John, while Santiago is Spanish for Saint James. Someone walking the Camino from St. Jean to Santiago would be walking from John to James, the two sons of Zebedee, two of the earliest disciples of Jesus Christ!
James and John, the Sons of Boanerges, the Sons of Thunder! John was the disciple whom Jesus had loved, who was given charge of Mary at Jesus' own wish from the cross. John was the only disciple who lived to old age, and in fact, the rumor had sprung up that John would live again until Jesus returned. He lived to write five books of the New Testament--the Gospel of John, the letters 1, 2 and 3 John, and the final book of the Bible, Revelations.
But his brother James was one of the first disciples to die, and he was martyred in about A.D. 44 by King Herod, the Bible tells us in the book of Acts. Peter was arrested at that same time, but miraculously lived to preach another day.
One of the most encouraging verses I read in the entire Bible comes at the end of the book of James (no relation to our James, the son of Zebedee!). In talking about the power of prayer of a righteous man, the writer James observes that the worker of some of the greatest miracles in the Bible--Elijah, who called down fire from heaven--was a man just like us.
We tend to think that men like John and James were somehow different than we are, that we place the word Saint in front of their names because they were a different kind of human being from us. Larger than life, almost like Superman!
But they didn't start out that way! At one point they asked Jesus if they shouldn't call down fire from heaven to consume a village that had refused to accept him. Jesus said no. They were among the disciples who wanted to keep little children from coming to Jesus to be blessed, and Jesus had to correct them and command them to let the little children come. Jesus loves it when the simple ones--the ones without great learning, understanding or stature--want to come to him to be blessed. And John and James were the ones whose mother asked of Jesus that they be allowed to sit on either side of him when he entered his kingdom. Jesus had to correct her also.
James and John were also among the last to see Jesus before he ascended into heaven. They heard his words that they were to be witnesses when the power of the Holy Spirit had come upon them, and they would carry the message of a new life through faith in Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth, beginning there in Jerusalem, and extending to Judea, and Samaria, and to Finisterre--the ends of the earth!
When the disciples began to be persecuted by the Jewish leaders for teaching about following The Way of Jesus Christ, their persecutors could not help but notice that they were unschooled, ordinary men. But they took notice that they had been with Jesus!
Tradition holds that James came to Spain and proclaimed the Good News here, before returning to Jerusalem to be put to death. There are lots of stories and traditions that have sprung up about him.
But at least one thing is certain--James was a follower of Jesus Christ. If indeed he came to Spain before his death, he did so to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And what is that Gospel, that Good News?
It can be summed up in one verse of the Bible that was penned by James' own brother, John, when he wrote:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believed in him would not perish, but have everlasting life." (The Gospel of John, chapter 3, verse 16.)
From John to James, the Way of Santiago, the Apostle to the Iberian peninsula, is still the same--the way of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the One who said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father except through me."
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