The Little Drummer Boy’s Gift
Religion & Liberty Online

The Little Drummer Boy’s Gift

Earlier this year Michael Kruse put out a request for suggestions for inclusion in a Commissioning Service for Human Vocation. This Advent season it struck me that the Christmas song, “The Little Drummer Boy,” or, “The Carol of the Drum,” is rich in vocational theology.

The little drummer boy has no gold, frankincense, or myrrh, no gift “fit to give a King,” so instead he plays his “best for him” on his drum.

The little drummer boy drumming his best is what makes baby Jesus smile. I like to think that each of his children doing his or her best in their daily work, whether drumming or otherwise, makes grown-up Jesus smile, too. What else, in the end, do we have to bring him but what gifts he has given us already? And what else do we have to show him but that we have been faithful with those gifts, playing our “best for him”?

The Canadian teen Sean Quigley has shown the timelessly relevant nature of this carol in an updated version, which has garnered some significant media attention south of the border as well. (For those of you with Spotify, you can check out the version from the Von Trapp family here.)

Says Quigley, “I want to be able to create music as a career and influence people.”

As Abraham Kuyper elaborates in Wisdom & Wonder, music making is an area of cultural creativity that can have significant blessings on individuals and peoples: “The player or singer translates what you yourself can barely stammer, and does so in rich and fulsome chords, and your soul feels liberated.”

Jordan J. Ballor

Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. He has previously held research positions at the Acton Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has authored multiple books, including a forthcoming introduction to the public theology of Abraham Kuyper. Working with Lexham Press, he served as a general editor for the 12 volume Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology series, and his research can be found in publications including Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Religion, Scottish Journal of Theology, Reformation & Renaissance Review, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Faith & Economics, and Calvin Theological Journal. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity & Politics at Calvin University.