Come they told me, a new born King to see; Our finest gifts we bring to lay before the King, so to honor Him when we come.
Little baby, I am a poor boy, too. I have no gift to bring that's fit to give the King. Shall I play for you on my drum?
Mary nodded. The ox and lamb kept time. I played by drum for Him. I played my best for him. Then he smiled at me; me and my drum.
So I always thought of this song as one of those songs that really has no Biblical basis and is just another fun song to sing, along with "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer" and "Santa Claus is coming to Town." However, recently I really listened to the lyrics. Okay so no drummer boy is mentioned anywhere in the gospels, but I really think this is saying something more than just, "There was this kid and he played his drum for the baby Jesus."
Some of the thoughts going through my head when I would listen to this song before were, "Really? Play a drum for a baby? Is that really such a good idea? Seriously. Isn't it kinda loud?" and "So the pa rum pa pum pums are getting a little redundant and irritating!" This year however I heard a really cool version of it by a group called "Denver and the Mile High Orchestra" that kind of jazzed it up a bit and added their own thing too it. One of the things added was: "I played my best for Jesus!" That got me thinking.
What do any of us really have that we can offer the King of Kings? Not really anything because everything we have already belongs to him. All our possessions, all our talents, us...it all belongs to Him. The best gift we can give to the King of Kings is to use what he has given us for him: To "play our best for Jesus."
So whatever talents Christ has given me - music, nursing, caring, teaching, compassion - I better just do my very best and stop fooling around. That is the only thing I can give Him to show my gratitude for his ultimate gift of salvation.
My hope for reward is His smile. Well done good and faithful servant. My I be worthy of that smile and statement.
