At the top of the list was “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”, likely a fave of fans of those “Grand Theft Auto” video games; close behind is that sappy “Christmas Shoes” song, about the kid wanting to buy a pair of fancy shoes for his dying mother who, his father tells him, is going to meet Jesus that very night; there is that earnest but musically forgettable ‘80s hit, “Do They Know Its Christmas” by Band Aid; and of course who can forget Alvin and the Chipmunks and their syrupy yet chirpy number, “”Christmas Don’t Be Late.”

And then, for many, there is that perennial favorite of the younger set, “The Little Drummer Boy.”

I have to confess that in my lifetime I have been all over the map with “The Little Drummer Boy.” As a child, I loved the tune, the repeated “pah rum pah pum pum”s, and the expansion of the crowd in the stable from Mary and Joseph and their baby, and the animals and the shepherds and the wise men, to now include a little boy, someone like me. But then, as I grew older and in some ways less wise, as I became a parent and entered what seemed like an endless parade of sleep-interrupted nights, I began to laugh at the absurdity of the image. Here I was, constantly trying to keep the house quiet lest the babies awoke and began crying once again, and here is a song celebrating the arrival in the manger of a boy banging on a drum!

This past Sunday my son, Camden, now in 4th Grade, brought his guitar to worship, and as we received the offering he quietly strummed “The Little Drummer Boy.” It was quite peaceful and beautiful. But it was not a drum! And let’s not kid ourselves, “pah rum pah pum pum” is, how shall we say, a kind description of the noise that a boy banging on a drum makes. You gotta figure this is about the last straw for Joseph – first this story from Mary about her giving birth to the Son of God, then this forced trip to Bethlehem for the census, then no room at the inn and having to turn a stable into a hospital room, then those mangy shepherds showing up, and now this! One imagines Joseph going after the lad with a pitchfork!

Novelist David James Duncan writes in his book, God Laughs and Plays:

“I liked to picture the infant Jesus’ eyes, so innocent and new that they were unable to focus, startling wide open at the sudden banging. I liked to picture God the Father wincing On High, wanting to cover His beloved son’s ears. . . send in his wise men to stop the banging, only to sigh, swallow His anger, and think, “Nope. Those are the mortals. This is Earth. This is my beloved son among the mortals on Earth. Let the drummer boy drum.”

Here is the startling, simple truth of Christmas – in the child Jesus, God is here, with us, in this world, in this ordinary, mundane life of ours. In the mess of a stable out back, in a rural backwater of the world’s mightiest empire, in a time when the powerful rule through oppression and fear, when the titans of business steal from the poor, born into a peasant family of no account, God is with us.

God is with us, in this tiny, vulnerable baby. And God puts God’s fate, and our fate, the whole enterprise, into our hands. Not into the hands of the best and the brightest, not into the hands of the university educated or the offspring of a political dynasty, not even into the hands of those who are especially holy and pious, the priests and religious scholars. No, God entrusts this whole enterprise to just plain folk, to young Mary, to elder Joseph, to lunch-pail shepherds just minding their business out on the hillside in the dog watch, to astrologers tracking the heavens, to a little boy, who has nothing to offer, except for what he has – the willingness to say “yes”, to offer all that he has, no matter how insignificant in the eyes of the world. Let the drummer boy drum.

This is how it is with us, as well. God puts the whole enterprise into our hands, leaving it to us to decide if we will respond to the invitation responsibly, faithfully; asking us if we will let it be with us according to God’s word; gently and yet persistently posing the question to each and all of us, will we do what God wants, will we, in our lives, with whatever we have, come to the manger, adore him, and offer our gifts, be they gold, frankincense, myrrh, or even a drum roll?

Can we do as well as that little drummer boy, banging away earnestly, yet able at the last to say, “I played my best for him pah rum pah pum pum”?

If we do, then surely we might hope that our best will be greeted with the same reception the little drummer boy received. You remember it, that last line of what some would say is one of the most obnoxious of Christmas songs, but one which I now see is one of the most promising: “Then, he smiled at me, pah rum pah pum pum.”

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