WOODEN DRUMMER BOY. (Christmas Break Devotional Series)

“Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.”

1 Timothy 4:14 NIV

One night in December, I was hanging some ornaments that were still in a small box by one of our Christmas trees. This tree is particularly tricky and probably has only remained the one that I setup in my home office because of pure nostalgia. Its simplicity accents the woodsy, outdoorsy ornaments I usually like to put there, and its cheap sparseness allows for big portions of larger red ornaments to show through. In short, it’s the tree I set up to reflect both a bit of my history and some of my dreams. But it’s literally on its last leg, balanced by a mispurposed D-clamp just weighting along the base and -interestingly - most of the heavy ornaments we own, placed carefully on the side I can’t even see.

We have a great bay window in that space and being that I’m able to look at the tree, the lights and the outdoors from my desk, I find it very inspiring when working on photography or writing this time of year. It’s a winter haven for me (yes I did write this post in part to convince my wife there’s a meaningful reason it stays up until February)! As such, placing ornaments here involves being a little pickier, and some I’d like to put up have to wait until I know how balanced this aging artificial tree really is. (Next year, promise I’ll have a new tree, but glad this one contributed to the post!)

SO, I find these leftovers and start carefully hanging them. Then one of those “Christmas moments” happens, when you see something in a different light and pause.  One of the ornaments, front and center of this tree, lit up only by Christmas lights, is a little wooden drummer boy.

Wooden.

Old.

Hard blues, black and reds.

Probably lead paint but we’ll ignore that for this story. (Hey, I’m not licking it...the scratch and taste Coke bottle ornament above it is there for that.)

Little ball hands, potato shaped feet. You know the type.

So much wear and history... he’s actually even lost his little drum.

So simple. So symbolic.

I look at it, and in the pause what I “SEE” is the years of trees he’s been on. I see my time as a kid looking at it in my living room on 13th street. I see the heart my mom put into making our times there meaningful. The things she would decorate the house with. The low light of Christmas bulbs that have always surrounded it, and the song that came to mind every time I would look at it. 

As a kid I don’t even have a clue where I first heard that song. But it was reinforced in the ornament, other little decorations, a cross stitched-like small tapestry that included the lyrics, even symbols at parties, public school, cookie cutters, you name it. ALL these things played together to reinforce and build this beautiful concept of no gift, no ability, no soul or personality being INSUFFICIENT. Wow… what a formative thing for a child... and how impossible yet true it is that one ornament (or it’s likeness) could remind and strengthen that understanding as I developed and grew into the adult I am now. 

Learning does NOT only come from information. Doesn’t the above account demonstrate that there’s something beyond our comprehension about how people can learn and grow personally? About how communication happens? Clearly beyond just verbal, words or info, truth is heard when a symphony of things come together along with that information. Maybe we could call it the language of the soul? I don’t know, that’s a post for another day, but consider the power in experience (and in this whole season) to unlock truth like you may have never considered - or not considered since you were young. We can’t form that experience in the way WE see fit, but we can open up to it. Even pray to the Author of it, to give us the lens to see it, the receptiveness to catch hold of it.

Ok back to earth somewhat after that sleigh ride into the mind of an enneagram type 7. Stay with me here.

The song “little drummer boy” is not a biblical account, but the truth of it sure is. Don’t you see it reflected in the story of the loaves and fishes? Don’t you see it in the disciples Jesus selected, Gideon and his 300 with pots and trumpets, or one stone against an armored giant? Don’t you hear it alive and well in an uneducated fisherman’s incredible sermon on the day of Pentecost? On and on and on we are told a great paradox: God makes VERY MUCH of the VERY LITTLE we can bring. In fact he CHOOSES it, and us. By the world’s standards what we have is almost always NOT enough. (In fact even if we are the few seemingly able to satisfy those standards, by all common sense and logic what we have is very little compared to what should be needed to satisfy an Ultimate Deity, if one existed.) Yet followers of Jesus claim God is both personal enough to care for us more than the world’s adoration ever could, and gracious enough to expect only what we can give, lifting us to HIS level simply because He is good and it’s His gift. In the song, Mary may have simply nodded, but the implication is clear - no gifts of gold nor livestock nor physical sacrificial offering can be equated above bringing what we have, and offering our best function to the true King. And, as the New Testament fleshes out in its narratives, His kingdom is made up of (and advances through) these honest offerings.

I cannot play an instrument, though if I’m being fully transparent, I long to play guitar. I love how songs can connect with people in a way that’s almost unexplainable, and I secretly daydream some mornings about leading certain worship songs I’m excited about for my student group. I used to struggle with the question of “how” I could impact others in the way those songs impacted me, often journaling things like “What song is mine to sing, what story is mine to tell?” All I have is dreams, thoughts, words, often pictures from my adventures, and the time I can personally give people in conversation. Time is a limit I can’t seem to overcome, and even this season where I was sure I would get more of these posts in on this project I do have, I came up way shorter than I would have liked.

Fill in the blanks yourself, replace my examples with your own. 

We both need to hear the truth of the Drummer Boy.

What we bring is ENOUGH.

Jesus chooses it, wants it, blesses it. It will not be offered in vain.

It’s an annual tradition of mine to read parts of the book “Stories Behind the Most Loved Songs of Christmas” by Ace Collins. Fantastic background info on so many major carols, it never ceases to encourage me and give me something new to think about even on re-reads. This season I was floored when I encountered the history of the song “Good Christian Men Rejoice.” It’s definitely not one I think of often at Christmas, I’ve never heard a Taylor Swift cover of it, not seen it listed on any of Michael Bublé’s 43 Christmas albums or known an instrumental of it to play in a Chic Fila bathroom. But I am familiar with the words and melody as it was a number in at least one of our choral performances when I was a part of our college’s choir. So I have in fact sung this in front of gatherings, even if I was buried in a sea of voices while doing so!

Turns out, both the original lyric writer and original composer both got ran out of the church, persecuted and threatened for much of their life afterward, and never lived to see the songs adoption into the worship music of institutional Christianity.

DANG.

All because the tone was joyful and the lyrics stressed “Rejoicing” , Celebration and the simple, personal relationship God established with believers through the willing work of His Son.

The music of the time, and expectation of worship for the time, was dominated by somberness and duty. I get there’s a time and place for everything, but come on?? Once people start talking about Joy in worship, you close the door on them and get...violent even? In all honesty, what these two men did made them like the Martin Luthers of music and Christian worship. And they were persecuted similarly. But they believed it all worth it because of the hope and joy they were attesting to, the song of freedom they were trying to offer the masses.

Common folk didn’t have access to studies and regular Bible reading. Worship songs were for church and no where else. The sacred and secular were starkly separated. 

But then boldness like this (and commoners who perpetuated songs like “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” during the time) broke through to those on the outside the way the One they sung about broke through to earth and landed in a common stable and a common family. The movement gave birth to more carols, sung in the day to day, by common people. And eventually the Church took notice and incorporated their liveliness and recognized the legitimacy of their lyrics. These guys didn’t know it, but in this way they lived out the incarnation they were attesting to. They brought heaven near and were instrumental in the growth of the Kingdom and the understanding of what it is.  Heroes.

But they passed before realizing this full impact. For all they knew, it hadn’t changed a lot of minds. But they stood by it.

Imagine not knowing the fruit of this?

It got me thinking... how many people throughout history, whether more famous than this or much less known, have contributed their part in the great understanding of this amazing Friend and Savior we claim? How many songs have been sung, how many stories told, how many actions taken, that have all carried the truth of scripture in a near infinite amount of ways for people to connect with it and hear it deep down through that “launguage of the soul” I mentioned above? Can you imagine, what it would look like for us to visually map the history of it? Every offering each individual has brought making a GIANT patchwork design across the ages, all strengthening us and affirming us and calling us to lift our heads and join in the tapestry whether it’s with our song, our words, our teaching, art or actions? We have no way of precisely knowing the impact all these parts have played, how they impacted the next and next story. 

Imagine how far a reach into the future your offering could go, how far your drumbeat could echo. If you could fast forward (which we can’t), it would likely shock you how your seemingly insufficient gift multiplied. We can all be like these two amazing changers of history, though it’s likely we’ll never know it this side of heaven.

It just takes you being real about what you have, and bringing it. Maybe better described: offering and living into it.

I know, even in writing this, I’m inspired to do the same. To better offer my “song,” this gift I’ve been given of passion for words and connection. 

The symbols of Christmas are like a roadmap and connecting points to so many deep truths about Jesus and his relationship with mankind. They can affirm and “repeat the sounding joy” from year to year simply by being there and sparking one’s memory of certain truths that resonate from scripture. 

But someone has to hang them and to keep them.

Would you make room in your life for opportunities to be placed like an ornament that reflects light  in dark places? And with that availability will you lean into your gift, bring what you have, be the best YOU shaped symbol possible and let Jesus make much of what may often seem like a drum-less drummer boy life?

If so, there’s a future me out there - maybe even generations later - that’s going to write about you and your impact on me, lead paint and all.