Play Your Best for Him

The Christmas song that’s most likely to make me cry isn’t actually based on the Bible.

Everyone knows this song, and it’s often mocked as being overly sentimental or annoying. There was even a challenge going around a few years ago: who could go the longest without hearing it during the month of December?

There are jokes about this song, such as the one about what a sleeping newborn really needs … is a drum solo.

Still, I love “The Little Drummer Boy.” And one line in particular makes me tear up every time.

Let’s do a quick recap of the lyrics: a young boy is accompanying the wise men to the manger to see the just-born babe (we’re already veering wildly from what actually happened—the time frame is off by about two years and an entirely new person has been added—but suspend your disbelief and let’s keep going). The wise men are bringing their finest gifts, their most expensive treasures, to the newborn King. The gifts aren’t brought for public acclaim. In this humble little scenario, there’s no one around except for a few barn animals and a small, exhausted family.

The young boy wants to be like the important, influential men he’s traveled with, and give something of value to the King. But he has nothing to give. He’s poor, just as the baby is poor. He has nothing with him except his drum, so he offers to play it.

And this is when I cry.

Even as a child, long before I called myself “Christian” as an adult, I’ve always teared up at that line in the song. Hearing “I played my best for him” caused me to feel an overwhelming poignancy, a strong yearning for … I’m not sure what. Perhaps it was a strong yearning for something else that I was born for besides this life in the here and now. Perhaps I felt compelled to seek the King because the desire of his created ones to be in his presence is so very strong. Perhaps it was the desire to give a gift to the one who gave me life, even when I have so little to give back to him.

All I knew was that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I wanted to play my best for him.

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This time last year, I was in a minor car accident that resulted in a long and painful recovery period from a pulled muscle. Four months later, my dear mother-in-law passed away after a sudden illness. Three months after that, I turned sixty. These events had me contemplating my own mortality more than I usually do, and now that the Christmas season has rolled around again, I find that “The Little Drummer Boy” has taken on new meaning for me. Have I played my best for him? I’ve been asking myself that question for decades, but here in the final third of my life, it has a certain meaning and urgency that it didn’t before.

What can we bring to Jesus? How can we show that we honor him, that we give him glory and praise, that we love him? What gift could possibly be worthy of God incarnate?

The wise men gave the baby Jesus treasure—they gave him back the very blessings that they had received from him. The little drummer boy did the same, in giving what was itself a gift from God: a talent, a creative ability that brought joy to others.

That’s all any of us can do. We can demonstrate our love for Jesus, we can give him glory and praise, by giving back to him what he first gave to us. It will look different for everyone, and it may change as we progress through different stages and seasons of our lives.

In Love Came Down at Christmas, Sinclair Ferguson says, “When Christ gives you a gift, it will be a blessing to you; but the gift isn’t primarily for you. It is to enable you to express your love for him by serving others.”

This Christmas, and throughout the year, how will you play your best for him? How will you spend the gifts that God has given you—your time, your money, your energy, your attention, your talents? However you “play for him,” follow the example of the wise men and the little drummer boy (fictitious though he may be): play your best for him with humility, joy, and a generous heart. Play your best with love for those around you. Play your best with thankfulness to the One who made you, and who made you able. Not to earn his love, but because you already have it.

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Lyrics (minus the drum sounds) and some famous recordings below:

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Here’s a baker’s dozen of “The Little Drummer Boy” recordings, both old and new, for just about any musical taste:

• Tommee Profitt (this is my new favorite)
• Pentatonix (a cappella)
• For King and Country (live)
• Harry Simeone Chorale (this says “childhood Christmas” to my husband)
• Johnny Cash (a different take)
• Bob Seger
• Dolly Parton
• Stevie Wonder
• Carrie Underwood (with her son)
• Justin Bieber (with rap)
• Frank Sinatra (I like Frank, but I’m not crazy about this—still, a lot of people love it)
• Joan Jett & the Blackhearts (it’s rock, it’s a guitar solo … because Joan Jett)
• There’s also the famous Bing Crosby/David Bowie duet, but it has precious little of “The Little Drummer Boy” in it—it’s mostly “Peace on Earth.”

“The Little Drummer Boy” was originally known as “Carol of the Drum,” and was written by American composer Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941.

Image by Manfred Richter from Pixabay