Acts 12:1-2

I am fond of saying, “Life is rough and then you die.” My saying reveals an attitude about life, but not a fact about life. All people die, but their life’s journeys do not follow a set pattern. This is true for both the world’s most evil and righteous people.

King Herod Agrippa ranks high among wicked people. He came from a wicked family. His grandfather was the king who tried to have baby Jesus killed. His uncle was the king who had John the Baptist beheaded. Agrippa was born 10 years before Jesus. When he was three, the emperor executed his father, and Agrippa went to live with his mother in Rome. He lived a playboy lifestyle and went deeply in debt. He had to flee his creditors and later spent time in prison. When his friend Caligula became emperor, he released Agrippa from prison. In the year A.D. 41, the emperor made Agrippa king of Judea. In A.D. 43, Agrippa was at the peak of his power, and had James beheaded to please his Jewish subjects. Less than two years later, he was dead.

Before he met Jesus, James worked with his brother and father as a fisherman. When Jesus called him, he followed. He was with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. He was one of the few apostles that witnessed Jesus raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead. He was with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. On the day of Pentecost, he received the gift of the Holy Spirit and with the other apostles preached boldly in Jerusalem. Ten years after the death of Jesus, King Herod Agrippa ordered his beheading, and he died.

The lives of Herod Agrippa and James do not have many parallels; they lived and they died.  Before dying, both had to choose what to do with Jesus. Agrippa rejected Jesus; James followed Jesus. We must make the same choice. Our choice will not determine if we die. It will determine everything about our life after we die.