 A Christmas Gift for Jesus
by April Yamasaki © 2003 April Yamasaki  Click here for Lyrics, Chords and Guitar Tab for The Little Drummer Boy December 7, 2003 If your household is anything like ours, you’ve probably noticed an increase in advertising flyers on your doorstep. From Pier 1 imports “gifts to give and get,” to Zellers “make your holiday glow,” to Shoppers Drug Mart “get ready gift ideas”—the Christmas shopping and gift giving season is well under way. Many of us buy gifts for family members and friends, employees and co-workers, a $5 gift for the preteen or youth gift exchange, gifts for a needy family through the Abbotsford Christmas bureau or through one of the many programs that provide gifts for people overseas. Giving gifts takes us beyond ourselves, and it’s fun to surprise and give gifts to other people. And good gifts don’t have to be expensive, they don’t even have to be store-bought. One young couple on a tight budget cook a gourmet meal together as their Christmas gift to each other. One woman bakes sugar cookies for her friends. Another makes candles. One youth gives coupons for a free evening of babysitting. A child draws a special picture or makes a Christmas card. The senior youth and sponsors will give blankets out on Christmas eve. There are many different ways that we can give a Christmas gift to people we love and care about, and to people we may not even know. But as much as I enjoy giving and receiving gifts at Christmas time, it also seems a little strange. Because the word Christmas is really two different English words put together. It’s “Christ” and “mas”—and that little word “mas” is a middle English word that means festival. So “Christ” “mas” or Christmas as we know it, is the festival of Christ, it’s the celebration of Christ’s birth. And you and I both know that when it comes to celebrating someone’s birthday, it’s the birthday boy or birthday girl that gets all the presents. When I go to a birthday party for my nephew, I take my nephew a present—I don’t buy a gift for myself or for my best friend or anyone else. And so I find it strange that at Christmas time, which is meant to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus, it seems that everyone is getting a gift—except the birthday guest of honour. Somehow it seems that Jesus gets left out as we put our energies into finding that perfect gift for our spouse or children or parents or co-workers or best friends. We even make an effort to give to people in need that we don’t know—whether it’s providing coats for kids in Abbotsford or seed potatoes for a family in Bosnia. I think it’s good to give in these different ways—it’s essential that we give so that Christmas and our Christian faith is not just about ourselves and not just about the people we know and love. But if Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ birthday—not my birthday, not your birthday, not the birthday of other family members or friends, then it seems to me that we still haven’t got it quite right. Because if Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, then surely we should be thinking about a Christmas gift for Jesus. The popular Christmas carol, “The Little Drummer Boy,” tells the story of a little boy who visits the newborn baby Jesus. Everyone else is giving their finest gifts. But the little drummer boy doesn’t have anything to give. So there in the stable, he comes close to Jesus and his mother Mary and he says to Jesus, “I am a poor boy too....I have no gift to bring That's fit to give our King.” And then he has an idea: “Shall I play for you?” And the song goes on: “I played my drum for Him..... I played my best for Him.....Then He smiled at me—me and my drum.” Today, we’re not little drummer boys in the stable with the baby Jesus, but we also might well ask ourselves: Do we have a gift that’s fit for the king? What will we give to Jesus this Christmas? To help us answer this question, hear the words of Malachi 3:1-4. This is one of the traditional Scripture readings for the Advent season: 3:1 See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. 3:2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; 3:3 he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until—and here’s the gift-giving part—until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness. 3:4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years. Now if you’re reading through the New Testament as part of the New Testament challenge this year, or even if you’re not particularly familiar with the Bible, you probably know that the Bible is full of unusual names. Last week’s New Testament challenge reading mentioned the prophet Balaam—and Korah, the son of Esau. This week’s reading includes the cities of Smyrna and Pergamum. So this Scripture reading for today from the book of Malachi might not seem so unusual. Balaam, Korah, Malachi—it’s just one more unusual name among other unusual names in the Bible. But it’s interesting to note that the word Malachi is not actually a name. It’s not the name of a person. It’s not the name of a city. It’s not a proper name at all. Instead, the word Malachi is a Hebrew word that means “my messenger.” It appears as the title of our Scripture reading today, and it also appears in the text of Scripture itself. Verse 1: see I am sending Malachi—I am sending my messenger—to prepare the way before me. This messenger appears at the very beginning of chapter 3, but it’s actually a response to the end of chapter 2, verse 17, which says “You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, "How have we wearied him?" By saying, "All who do evil are good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them." Or by asking, "Where is the God of justice?" Now just as we don’t know exactly who wrote the book of Malachi, we don’t know exactly when the book was written either. It’s the very last book of the Old Testament, just before the New Testament begins. So that gives us a clue that Malachi was written sometime before the birth of Jesus. And a careful reading of all four chapters of this short book narrows it down even further—since Malachi refers to the temple in Jerusalem, it must have been written after the temple was rebuilt which was about 520 BC. But since it seems unaware of the details of the law described in the book of Ezra, it was probably written before Ezra, which was about 400 BC. During that time—between 520 and 400 BC—the people of Malachi were living in the shadow of the great Persian empire. At that time, Persia was the super-power of the day. It was the king of Persia who had given the people permission to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. And the people had rebuilt the temple with high hopes. The book of Zechariah 8 describes the hopes of the people in these glowing terms: 8:3 Thus says the LORD: I will return to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the LORD of hosts shall be called the holy mountain.....Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.... there shall be a sowing of peace; the vine shall yield its fruit, the ground shall give its produce, and the skies shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. In other words, the people were hoping for a kind of golden age—where old and young would live in peace, where their city would be faithful and holy, and where God would clearly dwell in their midst. But instead of that wonderful golden age, by the time of Malachi the priesthood had become corrupt with the priests ignoring their responsibilities under the law. In Malachi 1:6, God addresses them as “O priests, who despise my name.” The old people and children, and other vulnerable people were not being cared for. Malachi 3:5 speaks out “against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear [God].” As a result, people were in despair, and they were asking, where is the faithfulness? Where is the holiness? And as we’ve already heard in Malachi 2:17, where is the God of justice? In many ways, our world today is very similar to the world of Malachi. Not long ago, I read an article in the newspaper about someone who claimed to be an ordained minister but who swindled elderly people out of their life savings. Time and again there are reports of people suffering from inadequate health care, children who are not being cared for even in our own communities, workers who are not paid fairly, even slavery in some parts of our world today. Like the people of Malachi, we also might well ask, where is the God of justice? In our text for this morning, God answers the people of Malachi, and God answers us: “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.” The Lord is coming. When I was a teenager, my favourite Christmas carol was “Joy to the World.” It was such a bright and cheerful song that lifted my spirits even when it was gray and cold and pouring rain, and I still had 5 days of school left before the Christmas holidays. It was a song meant for singing and for celebrating. “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.” But that’s not at all the mood here in the book of Malachi. Instead of a joyful “he is coming,” it is almost a warning. Yes “he is coming,” says verse 1, but in verse 2: “who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” The implied answer here of course is “no one.” None of us can endure the day of the Lord’s coming, and none of us can stand when God appears. The problem is not only the fraudulent ministers that we read about in the newspaper. Or teenagers in Vancouver that stand back and watch another youth get beaten to death. It’s not only unfair wages overseas. But each of us falls short of God’s glory in our own way. We think too much of ourselves and too little of others, and perhaps even less of God. We’re not as fair to other people as we should be. We’re not as faithful to God as we pretend to be. As Isaiah 64:6 says, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Like the little drummer boy, we are also poor—even though we are surrounded by affluence, even though we have more than enough material things to sustain our physical bodies. We are poor compared to the riches of God’s faithfulness and love and compassion. We don’t have a gift that’s fit for a king like Jesus. But the good news in these verses from Malachi is that God can make us clean and purify us. God can make us fit to present an offering, so just like the little drummer boy we also can give a Christmas gift to Jesus. The end of v. 2: God is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap. Again, these are not the most cheerful images. They’re actually quite harsh. In the ancient world, precious metals like silver and gold were refined by an intense heat that would burn off all other impurities. So a refiner’s fire was a very intense heat. A fuller was a person who laundered clothing. And laundry at that time wasn’t anything like today where you can put your clothes in the washing machine, add a bit of detergent, and the machine does the rest of the work. In the ancient world, a fuller would use a very strong lye soap, and then the clothes would be placed on rocks and beaten with sticks. So fuller’s soap was a very strong soap. The refining fire and the strong soap were not particularly joyful words—they were words of cleansing and judgement, and very severe. According to Malachi, that’s the kind of God who is coming. Joyce Hollyday comments on the refining fire and strong soap this way: “watch out....[God] will purify by the torch and rub you clean until it hurts.” And then—because this is a traditional Advent Scripture reading—she adds, “You were expecting maybe just an innocent baby?” (Living the Word) Yes, the God of the universe did become human in the form of an innocent baby. But Jesus did not remain the sweet little Lord Jesus asleep in the hay. In the gospel of Matthew 3, John the Baptist describes Jesus: “I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” There’s that word picture of God’s refining fire again. Like the intense heat that purifies precious metals, God can burn out the impurities in our lives. Like strong laundry soap, God can make us clean.....until Malachi says in v. 3: we can present offerings to the Lord in righteousness, and then v. 4 says, that offering will be pleasing to the Lord.” For the little drummer boy, that meant playing his drum for Jesus—playing his best for Jesus. And the song ends with Jesus smiling at the little drummer boy. He may not have brought the most expensive gift, the finest gift in the world’s eyes, but Jesus was pleased with his offering and smiled at him. Just as we can give in many different ways to other people, we can also give in many different ways to God. What will we give to Jesus this Christmas? Like the little drummer boy, maybe it will be the gift of a song. Like playing an instrument in the children’s orchestra next Sunday. Or leading worship as part of a music team. Or teaching Sunday school. Or being pleasant to a rude customer at work. Or forgiving someone who makes you look bad. Those are all good things, but sometimes we do them and sometimes we do other good things for less than the best motives. We give an offering to get a tax receipt. We come to church because we always come to church on Sundays. We’re nice to someone at work because we don’t want to lose our job. We sing because we have a good voice. We volunteer at MCC because all of our friends volunteer. These are good things to do, and I’m not at all suggesting we stop. Our reasons may be very practical or at least quite harmless—coming to church is a good habit, being involved with MCC is a good way to be with friends. But if that’s all these things are—good habits, good connections with friends—then they’re not yet “offerings to the Lord in righteousness” as Malachi describes. They’re not yet the “best” playing like the little drummer boy. They need to be touched by God’s refining fire and by fuller’s soap, so that our motives are not only personal and practical, but so they’re also directed toward God, so that we can do these things not only for ourselves and for others, but we do them for Jesus. The late Mother Teresa is admired world-wide for her ministry with the poor and suffering on the streets of Calcutta. She would often say, “Our work is not social work; it is God's work we are doing....not...social work, but to adore Christ in the littlest and weakest of his children." One time Mother Teresa was interviewed by journalist David Aikman, and she said much the same thing: "Ours is not a social work. We work 24 hours a day to express God's love.” And then she went on to say to him, "Your work [as a journalist] is different....Your task is to do as good a job writing as you can. This is how you may glorify God, by writing the truth and not expressing a bad influence. We express our adoration of God in our work." That’s the difference between social work and God’s work. Between doing good things and doing God’s thing. Between an offering and an offering to the Lord in righteousness. Between beating on a drum and the little drummer boy playing his best for Jesus. We express our adoration of God in what we do. As 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” We can’t do that on our own—but as the refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap, God can purify our hearts and make us holy, if we give ourselves to God. |
Dear Drummer Boy O, precious, little drummer boy, I often think of you, For on that special, holy night You played a tune or two In honor of the newborn King Who in a manger lay. You gave the only gift you had, Your deep love to convey. Oh, surely baby Jesus slept More peacefully that night As music serenaded Him And stars bathed Him in light. Your gift - more sweet Than frankincense Or myrrh or gleaming gold - Was music that welled up inside, More than your heart could hold. At times in life we think our gifts Unworthy since they're small, But God knows when we sacrifice And give to Him our all Written by Sandra Town Lytle Famous Drummers Names of World Famous Drummers Check them out at: Web www.drummerworld.com Dave Abbruzzese Larry Aberman Matt Abts Alex Acuña Daniel Adair Chris Adler Morgan Agren Airto Tommy Aldridge Steve Alexander Tim Alexander Rashied Ali Don Alias Carl Allen Barry Altschul Robby Ameen Scott Amendola Animal Charly Antolini Carmine Appice Vinnie Appice Kenny Aronoff Billy Ashbaugh Al Ashley Mick Avory Babatunde Ginger Baker Jeff Ballard Paul Barbarin Joe La Barbera Travis Barker Joey Baron Julio Barreto Ray Barretto Ray Bauduc Eddie Bayers Marcus Baylor Carter Beauford Poogie Bell Louie Bellson Charlie Benante Brian Bennett Han Bennink Joe Bergamini Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz Ignacio Berroa Denzil Best Curt Bisquera Gregg Bissonette Jason Bittner Dave Black James Black Cindy Blackman Ed Blackwell John Blackwell Brian Blade Hal Blaine J.D. 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