The Legacy of Zebedee

Zebedee is a small character in the Gospels that you may or may not recall off the top of your head. He only appears once during the story of Christ’s ministry (recounted in Mt 4:21,22 and Mr 1:19,20) but he has one big claim to fame. Zebedee is the father of James and John, the apostles. These brothers were not only apostles, they were rockstars, part of Jesus’s inner circle. Both were some of the only people to see Jesus resurrect the daughter of Jairus and Jesus’s transfiguration. They were with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus referred to them as “Boanerges” or “Sons of Thunder”. James was the first apostle to be martyred for his faith. John wrote multiple books of the new testament. Both were with Peter during the early days of the church. Quite a resume, eh?

“Yes impressive, but wasn’t I talking about their dad, Zebedee?”

One of the biggest things Christians men are told is to consider the legacy you will leave. How will you be remembered in your church, your community, your family? James and John certainly left a legacy. I think that anyone of us could be called to the kind of public, large-scale ministry that James and John were. I also believe that most of us won’t be called to that kind of ministry. Gone are the days when God only spoke on a grand scale through prophets, leaders and judges. With the spirit in us, our ministries are often on a much more intimate level, one-on-one with our neighbor. Most of us will leave a smaller legacy.

“Interesting, but come on man, what about Zebedee?”

If God calls me to leave the kind of legacy that James and John did, I hope to follow that calling with my whole being. But if he doesn’t, which he probably won’t, my prayer is to leave the legacy of Zebedee. We know very little about Zebedee except that he raised two of the greatest followers of Christ that ever lived. That’s a pretty killer legacy. Our little ones are the future of God’s kingdom. What is more important than protecting their hearts in preparation for God’s work?

We don’t know what kind of father Zebedee was nor do we know exactly how much his parenting prepared James and John for their ministry. I’m sure Zebedee made all the same mistakes our fathers made, the same mistakes we will make some day. But that’s what is so amazing about living in Christ, sometimes it’s the people who struggle the most that he uses the most. The gospel writers don’t record the details of Zebedee’s life because the details, good or bad, aren’t important. What’s important is that God used Zebedee’s fatherhood to prepare two of Christ’s greatest disciples and closest friends. I hope to leave the same legacy as Zebedee, children that are 10x the Christian I ever was.

I wrote this letter a few weeks ago when my brother was home for spring break. I’m publishing it here because most of us have been touched in one way or another by the military, but have never let the real weight sink in of what those men and woman have committed their lives to.

Dear Brent,

You want to be a Navy SEAL. When I tell this to people they either say, “Yeah sure…” or “Did he see that show about their training?! It’s hard!” These people don’t know you though. They don’t know that we have Navy in our blood. They haven’t seen you spend hours on the computer researching firearms, combat tactics and training. They didn’t watch you turn into a work-out machine who considers a five-mile run to be a easy day. They don’t know that you’ve rubbed elbows with admirals, politicians and special warfare operators. They don’t know that you’ve gone to the middle of the desert to be yelled at, abused and mentored by active-duty Air Force Pararescuemen. They certainly don’t know that you take freezing showers to get used to being in cold water. But I know.

I’ve watched you transform from a sweet little kid who likes action figures into a hard, focused NROTC Midshipman. Even as I write this, you’re taking a shower wearing your new boots to help break them in. Who does that? My badass brother, that’s who.

I’ve always loved the thought of you being a SEAL. You’re not going to be some grunt playing ping-pong on an Army base oscillating between boredom and fear of IED’s. You’re going to get bad guys. Real bad guys. The bad guys that want to hurt the people I love. I’ve always known objectively that your job would be dangerous, but I never thought much of it. It’s just part of the job and someone has to do it.

Today, that changed.

We went to see Act of Valor, that movie starring real, active-duty SEAL’s. Through most of the movie, watching the SEAL’s do what they do, I kept thinking, “Oh Brent can’t wait to do that, Brent’s going to love that.” However as the movie closed a messaged came up saying, “This movie is dedicated to the SEAL’s who lost their lives since 9/11,” and then the names started to scroll. Dozens and dozens of names and you stood up in the theater and went to attention for these men that will never have the chance to be your brothers. Finally it closed with the message, “And to the ones that will one day go down range…” That’s you. One day you’re going to go down range and do what most of us are not willing to do, risk everything.

We like to think that special operators are invincible, real life superheroes, the best of the best. Better training, better preparation, better intuition, but the reality is that could be your blood soaking into the sand just as easily as anyone’s. You can die in a helicopter crash just as easily as anyone else can.

War is war, death is death, and that’s what you want to do.

We need people to put their lives on the line, but tonight, for the first time, I’m starting to wish it didn’t have to be my little brother. It does though because you can do it and I can’t. You have to make me one promise though. Your name better not end up on that list. Mom and Grace will be very upset.

I love you, brother. You’ve grown into a strong man of God and I’m proud when I look at you. Don’t let it go to your head though. You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you and the only easy day was yesterday.

Steve Cornell talking about how our culture tells us to, above all else, follow our feelings. Feelings such as, “But I’ve fallen out of love.” Read the whole article.

This cultural ethic is often used to give people a false sense of virtue when breaking deep commitments. By “avoiding hypocrisy” and “being honest enough to admit the loss of feelings,” they feel justified—perhaps even virtuous—in breaking their wedding vows.

There is a deep and self-destructive deception in this line of reasoning. It implies that we are somehow victims of our feelings, incapable of mastering them. Feelings come and go with changes in the weather.

But do you go to work only when you feel like going? Do athletes or great musicians only practice when they feel like it? We simply cannot live a healthy and productive life if we let our feelings master us. This is especially true regarding relationships.

Jesus is Lord.

I just want to do right by God and the beautiful people he’s given me. Do right by Gracie. Do right by my family and my friends. Do right by the those I’ve been instructed to serve and those I’d rather just hate. But I’m so bad at it. Often I feel like I do the exact opposite of right. I do exactly what Gracie didn’t need me to do. I do exactly what the boys I lead don’t need from their leader. I think of Paul saying, “For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate.”¹

I know that I can never do right by God. I’m fallen and broken and yadda yadda yadda, but you can only say that to yourself so many times before you think, “This isn’t helping.” So I pray for God’s instruction and the Spirit’s guidance. Yet discouragement sets in and my prayers taper off. To fix this I start praying to for God to remind me to pray for guidance and instruction. This feels so unnecessarily meta that I get frustrated. Now I’m praying to not feel frustrated about praying to be reminded to pray for guidance and instruction.

This is the cycle I go through. By the end I’m discouraged, frustrated, confused and still not doing right by God.²

Paul would tell me that I’m forgetting something. When I became a saint I confessed with my mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believed in my heart that God raised him from the dead.³ And that hasn’t changed. He is Lord. Faithful when I’m faithless. Powerful when I’m weak. Taking care of my loved ones when I’m letting them down. I’m going to spend the rest of my life letting people down because I’m human, but it’s comforting to know that even when I go off the rails, Jesus is still Lord.

Jesus is always Lord.

That.

I don’t remember most of this past week. Couldn’t even remember the work that I did. Shame. Seems I don’t remember anything I do if it isn’t actively building something. Work amnesia. Email fugue state. I forget because there’s nothing that I can point to and say, “That.” I get sad when I don’t have that. It’s like I’m a baby that doesn’t have object permanence, except with my work.

— Frank Chimero

This quote. This one.

I’ve discovered over the last year that I get so much satisfaction from creating. I want to end the week and be able to show you what I did. Photographs, words, painted walls, fixed holes and now even a little bit of code. Like Frank, I can’t remember much about last week. I was sick and unmotivated. This week is a day old and I can already tell you that I made a logo for myself. My own logo! How cool is that?

What I’m realizing is I need to figure out how to build God’s kingdom through creating, both in my career and in my free time. I don’t know yet how he’s going to use me in that way, but that’s how he’s going to use me and it’s pretty exciting.