I tear up when I hear "The Little Drummer Boy." Since I was a child, that song has gotten to me, right down to my core. I never understood why, having been a pretty-much-non-practicing-Jew until I was 27. I used to hear that song, and the tears welled up, and something deep inside stirred and moved and nagged. It meant nothing to me spiritually, not on any conscious level- I was my own version of the Anti-Christ. But... I can't explain how it made me feel. Of course, I also saw the face of Christ in wet pool deck as a teenager, and in mussed-up sofa microfiber as an adult. Oh, and on a cocktail napkin at a bar, once, though that one could easily be explained by the state of my brain at the time (it was so crazy.) I snapped a picture of it on an archaic mobile phone, which is long gone. I wish I still had it, I'd show you. You'll just have to take my word for it.
"I am a poor boy, too," offers the child. He plays his drum. The baby smiles. I see it when I hear it: a poverty-stricken, dirty child with a drum. The King of Kings in meager surroundings. A humble offering. The miracles of grace and love.
I imagine the once bereft child in the song to have carried the smile from that baby King with him throughout his life, as he herded his sheep, as he prayed with his family before meals, as he rested his head before sleep. And then, how rich that boy who became a man must have felt inside, knowing the Savior smiled at him. He had nothing before that smile, nothing but a modest drum. He was ordinary, and he became extraordinary, because of his offering and because of that smile.
Neither do we have anything to offer Christ but ourselves. Without him, we are poverty-stricken, spiritually destitute children with tattered drums. So, play your best for Him, and accept the richness in His smile.
