12 Days of Christmas/Day 5 (Thomas Becket)

Let me set up this interesting Christmastide day with a bit of personal backstory. I was raised in a Lutheran church. I had a deep encounter with Jesus in a Baptist church in my late twenties. I was then discipled for a time by a free methodist and ended up serving in a multi-denominational ministry for years. I then enrolled in a Pentecostal Bible college and attended two different Pentecostal churches. I now attend a charismatic Anglican church and I feel as though all the pieces of my spiritual journey are merging together. And let me tell you, it's been a journey!

Also, I'm a complete history nerd! So, when I saw that December 29th is the Feast of Thomas Becket day in the litergical calendar, I was completely intrigued!

Thomas Becket was an ordained deacon who Henry II appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket's appointment, most likely, had more to do with Henry II wanting to gain control over the Church, than it did for pious reasons. The two men were friends and the King believed that Becket shared his ambitious grab for power and prestige, and would help him establish his influence over the Church. Although Becket wasn't the model of Christian virtue, he took his newly appointed role seriously, stating that the Church answered to God and not Henry II. He is quoted as saying, "for the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church I am ready to embrace death." This was seen as an act of treason, and eventually led to Thomas Becket being murdered on December 29, 1170.

Other than the date, the obvious question is what does this have to do with the Christmas story? I think the answer lies in the rememberance that the true Christmas story is not all tinsel and holly. It's actually gritty, and encompasses both the wonderment of God's purposes and love toward us, and the suffering we experience here on earth.

Following Jesus will cost us deeply. It costs us our ego (that which the Bible calls our forged personalities), our sense of entitlement, our need for black and white answers, our quest for autonomy (wanting to forge our own way differently than the ways of Jesus), and our intentional fortifying of our own survival mechanisms. But what we gain in return is priceless–a sense of being so deeply loved that our true selves can emerge and live freely before our heavenly Father. And, the more we allow the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit to bring us into this heavenly light, the more we realize that the true life found in Jesus, is a life worthy of dying to self-rule.

Christmas celebrates the beginning of our realization that Christ entered our world in order to bring us out of it, and into Himself. And, it's this story that we see lived out in the life of Thomas Becket–both his life and his death.