What We Can Learn from the Little Drummer Boy

Since I was a child the “Little Drummer Boy” Christmas carol has been a favorite of mine – I think because of all the “pa rum pum pums!”   I haven’t heard the song yet this season (probably because I can’t stop listening to Christy Nockel’s new Christmas album), but the other morning while reading Ann Voskamp’s advent devotional book, The Greatest Gift, the little drummer boy popped into my head.  A certain sentence from the Day 2 reading struck me and it occured to me that the little boy had it right and perhaps we could learn something from him. Or, at least be reoriented back to something we may believe, but don’t live as if it’s true.

As the song goes, the little boy was told to come see the new born King. Everyone would be honoring him by bringing their finest gifts to lay before him.  Pa rum pum pum pum.

But the Little Drummer Boy was poor and didn’t have any gifts fit for a king. What he could do though is play his drum. Pa rum pum pum pum.

Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum, on my drum?”

So the little boy began to play the very best he had ever played. Mary and the animals liked it, but the greatest gift was when the King smiled at him. Pa rum pum pum pum.

The Little Drummer Boy offered all that he could to the king. We’ve heard this message: that no gift is too small and we should give what we can. It’s true as our giving has more to do with our heart than the actual gift. The boy got this. But I wonder if the little boy was so happy to play his drum because he understood something deeper… Me and my drum.

According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”  While not an exact verse out of the Bible, this statement encapsulates the whole of Scripture that in and through and to all things be the glory of God through Jesus. It is afterall why God sent Jesus into the world. Apart from Jesus’ life and death on our behalf we could not know the eternal, perfect love of God. To God be the Glory!

Along the same line and what started me down this thinking track this is what I read from Voskamp:

…the greatest gift we can give our great God is to let His love make us glad.”

And so it seems, what Jesus wants from us is not our good works, our good behavior, our good church attendance, our  good witness, our good efforts to be a good Christian, but for us to be made glad by what he offers us!

Now hear me – those things I just threw out are good things, but again it’s the heart behind our “goodness,” for goodness sakes! So I think we must always be asking and evaluating our true motives behind our goodness.

Is it to try to earn God’s favor? Is it to look good or feel better about ourselves? Is it out of guilt? Is it so we look better in someone else’s eyes?

Apart from his love driving us, our goodness may benefit others, make us look good/feel good, but is no “gift” to God.  What he wants is to see us made joy-filled, or “glad,” because of our salvation. In other words, when we are transformed by the benefits of knowing his grace and forgiveness, compassion and mercy, and the spirit at work within us our enjoyment of him will be evident by how we seek to live and love. Compelled by his love then, what we do will be a reflection of our desire to glorify and obey him. Not to get, but to give out of gratitude.

So what if instead of focusing on what we should or should not do to be a so-call “good” Christian, we simply focus on the babe in the manger: The King who came to a dark and broken world for self-absorbed, manipulative people, like us, so he could give us the greatest gift.

How twisted that we think we have anything to offer at all. But how beautiful when we “get” that instead of trying harder, we can simply relish in who he is for us. To God Be the Glory. Pa rum pum pum pum.