The Little Drummer Boy

With Christmas coming soon, I am very excited for many things! One major thing that we as missionaries get to do on Christmas is calling our families! As a missionary I only get to communicate with my family once a week through email, so getting to call home is a great opportunity that I am very thankful for! However, besides all the presents and candy and food, what is Christmas all about? It is about the birth of The Savior, who has brought us something even better than a phone call home! In about a year and a few months I will be heading home from my mission because my two year service will end. I will be returning home just because that is what happens after a period of missionaries service has ended. But  Jesus Christ, however has brought  us the opportunity to be able to return to live with God after our time on this earth is up! Being able to return to live with God is something that would not have been possible without Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ lead a perfect, Sinless life. He showed us how we should live our lives. He established His Gospel and called apostles to help Him in preaching the gospel. He gave those apostles the authority to baptize, give the gift of the Holy Ghost, and heal the sick, among other things. He sacrificed Himself for the world so that we would have the opportunity to repent and become clean from our sins. He took upon Himself the pains, sins and afflictions of the world so that He would know how to help us through them. Without Jesus Christ us being able to return to live with God, and live happy lives here on earth would not be possible.

To show our gratitude for what Jesus Christ did for us, what could we give back to Him for Christmas? There is a Christmas song that I really like, which I think we all know. However I did not know the meaning behind the song until yesterday, when the BYU Men’s Choir came to the MTC and sang the song, one of the Choir members talked about the song, and I would like to reiterate what he had to say about it.

 The song is called, ”The Little Drummer Boy” in this song it talks about a boy, who came to see The Savior and wanted to give Him a gift. However this boy was poor, who could not give any gift except for one thing which he did have, which was his talent of playing the drum. The second verse of the song goes like this:

Little Baby
Pa rum pum pum pum
I am a poor boy too,
Pa rum pum pum pum
I have no gift to bring
Pa rum pum pum pum
That's fit to give our King
Pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Shall I play for you!
Pa rum pum pum
On my drum.

We will never be able to fully repay The Savior for what He has done for us, some of us are poor like this boy in the song, However There are two things which we could do for The Savior to show Him our love for Him. The first one would be to do as this boy did in the song, which would be to give our talents to him and use them to bless the lives of others. The second things we could do is to keep the commandments which He has given us. The commandments being another way that God shows us that He loves us, but that is something that I have talked about before, so I will not go in further detail about that, if you would like to learn more about the commandments please see my blog post called “The Blessings of the Commandments.”  But, lets go back to the song, what does the song about the drummer boy, have to do with keeping the commandments? The song does not specifically talk about the commandments, but as you read the next verse of the song, please look for how keeping His commandments could be indirectly talked about in the song. Here is the next verse:

 


Mary nodded
Pa rum pum pum pum
The ox and lamb kept time
Pa rum pum pum pum
I played my drum for Him
Pa rum pum pum
I played my best for Him
Pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Then He smiled at me
Pa rum pum pum pum
Me and my drum.

Will you be able to have The Savior smile at you when He comes again? Will you be able to say that you did your best to keep His commandments, and to use your talents to bless the lives of others?