The Letter of James to the Scattered Congregation

Jerusalem, 45 AD

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the beloved who were once gathered in Jerusalem and now find yourselves dispersed among the nations: Grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Beloved, I have received your delegation.

They came to me with heavy hearts and heavier questions. They spoke of loss. They spoke of confusion. They demanded to know why the God who once blessed you with wealth and standing in this holy city has now permitted your scattering. They asked me to explain how the same God can appear both sweet and bitter, both generous and cruel.

I write to you now as your pastor and as one who understands rejection—for I am the brother of a man whom this very city cast out and killed.

Consider what has befallen you.

When Claudius rose to power in Rome in the year 41, our local ruler Herod Agrippa made himself the great defender of Jewish purity. You know what followed. He seized the properties of those among you who possessed wealth. He drove our generous members from their honored positions. He scattered the Levitical priests who had come to see the Messiah hidden in every temple ritual they performed. By the year 44, nearly all who had means had fled Jerusalem, and our once-flourishing congregation was reduced to the poor and the lowly.

In that same terrible year, the Apostle James—not I, but the beloved one from among the Twelve—was beheaded by Herod’s sword. Peter was arrested. Only by the angel of the Lord was he delivered, and then it was Herod himself whom death claimed.

Now you have heard that the persecutor is dead, and your hearts have turned back toward Jerusalem. Your delegation made this plain to me. You desire restoration. You long for the congregation as it once was—the rich caring for the poor, the respected mingling with the humble, all of us dwelling together in the shadow of the temple where our Lord rose from the dead and the Day of Pentecost occurred.

I understand this longing. But I must speak plainly to you.

You have not understood what happened to you.

You ask: Why did God permit this evil? Why did He allow us to be driven from our homes? Does He send both blessing and cursing from the same hand?

Beloved, listen carefully. Someone else was driven from Jerusalem. Someone else lost everything He possessed. Someone else was cast outside the city walls and appeared, to all who watched, utterly forsaken by God.

On that Friday we call good, Jesus of Nazareth was never more fully the Christ than when He hung dying beyond the gates. And you, beloved—you will never be more conformed to God’s own image than when you are cast out of the life you desperately wish to live.

This is the wisdom that descends from above. This is the light that shines from the Father of lights. But oh, how different this light appears from what we expected! The light of the world never blazed more brilliantly than on Golgotha, and yet to human eyes it looked like darkness.

Understand the nature of your scattering.

The twelve tribes of Israel were scattered among the nations. Now you, the true twelve tribes, experience that same exile. Do not mistake this for punishment. The restored people of God remain scattered because they remain cruciform. When the pattern of the crucifixion embeds itself into the fabric of your daily existence, then you are blessed—though every instinct within you screams otherwise.

You once distinguished carefully between rich and poor among yourselves. The wealthy sat in places of honor; the beggar was given a low stool. This ordering of things belongs to the old world, the cosmos that is passing away. The cross invades and overturns all such arrangements. On that wooden beam, the one who possessed all things became utterly destitute, and in His poverty made many rich. The distinction between the one who has and the one who lacks dissolves in the body of the dying Christ.

Your longing to return to your former prosperity is, I must tell you plainly, a form of friendship with the world. And the world has been crucified to you, as you have been crucified to it.

Consider: Who were the powerful men in Jerusalem who confiscated your property? Who drove you from your homes? And now you wish to return and take your place again within that same social order? You wish to be approved by the very system that rejected the Lord of Glory?

Hear me concerning the tongue.

Your delegation spoke many words to me. Some were wise. Many were not. We all speak too freely about matters we do not comprehend. The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity set among our members. It sets ablaze the entire course of our lives, and it is itself set ablaze by Gehenna.

No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those made in God’s likeness. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

And yet—there is one mature man whose tongue was perfectly governed. There is one who opened not His mouth when He was led like a lamb to slaughter. This man speaks for us now. His voice, crying out from the cross, covers a multitude of sins. You have been given the mind of Christ, the heart of Christ, the lips of Christ. Let Him do the speaking.

Do not be deceived about the nature of God.

Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. He does not shift between kindness and cruelty as you have supposed. What you have experienced as curse is gift. What you have named evil is mercy wearing an unfamiliar face.

God’s judgment and God’s mercy are not opposites. They meet and become one in the cross. The cross is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—the place where apparent opposites reveal themselves to be aspects of a single reality. What seemed like your destruction was your salvation. What felt like divine abandonment was divine embrace.

You ask whether God sends both sweetness and bitterness. I ask you: Was the cross sweet or bitter? Was Good Friday curse or blessing? The answer, beloved, is yes. And your exile from Jerusalem participates in that same mystery.

Submit to a crucified existence.

This is my exhortation to you: Resist the devil’s whisper that tells you your true home is in the Jerusalem that was. Your citizenship is in another city. Your exaltation is not found in restored wealth, in regained social standing, in returning to the congregation as it once existed. Your exaltation is found on a cross.

The cross saves you and destroys you simultaneously. This is not contradiction; this is the shape of divine love. The cross is God’s law—that much is obvious to anyone who contemplates it. But the cross is also God’s royal law of liberty, His gospel, and this is what your present suffering is teaching you.

Go outside the camp. Embrace your crucifixion. The spirit of rejection, the experience of being cast out—these things dwell within the very heart of God’s Anointed One. When you share in His exclusion, you share in His glory.

Concerning your trials.

Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter trials of various kinds. I know how strange these words must sound to those who have lost homes and fortunes and standing. But know this: the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And when steadfastness has completed its work, you will be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Yes, you are lacking now—compared to what you possessed in Jerusalem, you have been stripped bare. But this lacking is what makes you complete. This emptiness is fullness. This death is life.

The purifying of faith is the cleansing of Christ in you. What is being tested is not merely your resolve or your endurance. What is being tested is the faith of Jesus Himself, living within you, proving itself genuine through fire.

Remember Job.

You know of Job’s perseverance, how he wrestled and argued with God through his afflictions. His questioning did not displease the Almighty. His struggle was the struggle of faith seeking understanding. You are the twelve tribes—Israel, the one who wrestles with God. Your questions honor Him even when they are born of anguish.

But remember also how Job’s story ended: not in explanation but in encounter. Not in answers but in presence. The whirlwind spoke, and Job was satisfied—not because his questions were resolved, but because he met the One who is beyond all questions.

A final word.

From beginning to end, from your first breath to your last, your life is characterized by one event: the death of Jesus. The cross gives birth to you and produces all your fruit. Every disaster, every sorrow, every tear—even death itself should it come—all of these are nothing but the most beautiful manifestation of the crucified life of God dwelling within you.

Do not wish your exile away. Do not pine for the Jerusalem that was. The new Jerusalem descends from above, and you are already its citizens. The congregation you mourn was beautiful, yes—but it was a shadow. What you are becoming now, scattered and poor and stripped of pretension, is the substance.

Be quick to listen. Be slow to speak. Be slow to anger. I say these things confident that the Christ within you can and will be obedient. For it is no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Your servant and pastor,

James

Written from Jerusalem, in the fifteenth year after the resurrection of our Lord

“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.”