As a music lover, there are many Christmas carols that I have sang over the years.  I start as early as I can and sing or listen to them as often as I can in the Christmas season. One of the songs that I have enjoyed a great deal is “The Little Drummer Boy.” The song is fictional, at least for the most part.  Christ was born to Joseph and Mary in the humble stable, but the little drummer boy was not a character in the biblical scene.  The song was written as a story of a poor boy who had nothing to bring but wanted to come and honor baby Jesus.  

He was unlike the wise men in two keyways – they were real and wealthy, he was fictional and poor. The wise men are biblical characters you can read about in scripture and they came with all of their precious and expensive gifts. Still, both the poor drummer boy and the wise men gave what they had to give. The little drummer boy’s story is a nice story but it’s not true. So, if the little drummer boy was not real, then why should we sing a song about him.  After all, if you want to keep Christmas as close to the authentic story of Christ as possible wouldn’t you leave this Christmas Carol out of the mix? I would argue that you should sing the song even though it is not about a real boy because although it’s not a true story there is a very valuable lesson to be learned from this humble kid.

What is that valuable lesson you might ask? Christmas is all about honoring Christ and as a believer that’s where we put our emphasis. It is our desire as believers to worship at his feet, at the feet of our great savior who was once that small babe in a manager. Unlike the wise men in this story of Christ’s birth, we come to Jesus very much like the little drummer boy came. We come to Christ-poor, unworthy, dirty, coming with nothing or with nothing of real value, nothing fit to give our King.  Like him It is our desire to honor Christ. The story of that silly fictional little drummer boy who just wanted to honor the babe in the manager is our own.

We have hope just like he did.  Hope that though we have nothing to bring we can give ourselves, our song, our service, and our life to honor Jesus. Truthfully, that is what God desires from us anyway.  He is not interested in some amazing gift that we think that we should bring, he just wants us to give our heart, our life, and our devotion. Still Christ will accept our offering, this offering of ourselves to him. How amazing!

This year as you praise God during the Christmas season and you observe the nativity scenes, which the little drummer boy has no true part in, I want you to imagine him there. When you compare yourself to the characters in the cast set in the Christmas story only God could have written understand that you are not the angels or the wise men.  No, you’re more like that fictional drummer boy or perhaps even the shepherds. The shepherds were the outcast, the ones whom only God acknowledged and accepted by his grandiose announcement of his son’s birth to them. We are the humble and lowly characters in the story. If you think about it that’s exactly how it should be. We are a very humble people serving a God who presented himself in a most humble way even though he is a mighty boundless king.

This Christmas, I pray that you can see yourself in the Christmas story in a new way.  See yourself as the simple little drummer boy or as a lowly shepherd tending his flock in the fields. Unnoticed by everyone and yet we are seen and acknowledged by God himself, with your humble offering being joyful accepted by our Savior. So, come…Our Mighty King to see…Ourselves the gift we bring…To lay before our King…So to honor Him…When we come!