The Eleventh Day of Bringing Gifts – December 22, 2012
“On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…eleven pipers  piping,  ten lords a-leaping, nine ladies dancing, eight maids a-milking,  seven swans a-swimming, six geese  a-laying,  five gold rings – four calling  birds, three  French  hens,  two turtle doves,  and a partridge  in a pear tree.”
Of all the exciting  moments at my ordination service  one thing stood out: a funny little duet for tuba and piccolo. “We are fools for Christ’s sake,” said Paul (1 Corinthians 4:10). Apparently so!
It is hard not to feel foolish celebrating the birth of One who heralds  the world’s salvation. Sin and injustice are as powerful  as ever. Despotic regimes  are overthrown only to be replaced, too often, by rulers unwilling or unable to rule democratically. Hunger, poverty,  and discrimination of all sorts remain  too real. 
Easy to miss is the courage and hope  continually born and reborn, evident  in so many lives, on the world stage or right at home  – “light in the darkness  that the darkness  cannot overcome” (John 1:5). Next to a tuba of trouble  this can seem like a piccolo of good news. But it’s impossible to miss that piccolo! Its bright, clearsounds  often upstage  the tuba,  making  the tuba’s sound a bumpy  thump, thump, thump, like the gasps of a dying behemoth. 
It’s easy to feel like a “piccolo” next to the thump, thump, thump  of trouble. We can forget what immediately follows Paul’s comment about  being  fools for Christ: “When  I am weak,  then I am strong.” We can’t receive God’s power  if we’re looking  for it in the devices  and desires  of our own hearts.  Idealism  and good intentions can become yet another thump  – sometimes the thump of guilt because we’re forever falling short. But like the piccolo, “the still small voice of God” (1 Kings 19:2) won’t go away.  It can’t be drowned out.
May the spirit of Jesus sound  for us amid  the burdens we carry. And like children, may we know  something of playfulness amid  it all – as in singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” G.K. Chesterton said the devil, a former angel,  “fell by force of gravity”! That doesn’t  have to befall us! God is by our side.
According  to an annual study by a national financial institution, the cost of eleven  pipers  piping  is approximately $2,428. To explore  the life-giving possibilities of a $2,428 gift to the Christmas  Fund for the Veterans  of the Cross and the Emergency  Fund, visit http://bit.ly/CF12_12_12-11.