My True Love Gave to Me...Day 11

Saturday before last, I started  the 12 Days of Christmas post series based on a book called The Real 12 Days of Christmas by Helen Haidle. You can read the introduction about it and the first 10 days here.

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"On the eleventh day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me...eleven pipers piping..."

The eleventh gift from our Heavenly Father (My True Love) is really pretty simple. The eleven pipers piping represent the eleven original faithful disciples who walked and talked with Jesus before His death and resurrection. Eleven rather than twelve, of course, excluding Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ and therefore revealed his true loyalty.

Remember in Luke 24 when the two men are walking along the road to Emmaus discussing all that had happened regarding Jesus, His death, and His resurrection? Do you remember who their surprise Guest was who appeared with them, stimulating conversation between them?

It always slays me how the one man asked Christ, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that have happened there in these days?"

Ha ha! He actually asked the...Creator of the Universe, the All-Knowing Almighty...how He could be so clueless! Cracks me up.

Well after their conversation with Him, and after He informed them of a thing or two, they realized to Whom they had been talking and immediately made their way back to Jerusalem.

They found the eleven and those with them gathered together and saying, “The Lord has really risen, and has appeared to Simon!” Luke 24:33

These eleven, the closest of Christ's faithful followers, are pictured in the pipers. A piper, by definition, is simply "one who plays the pipes." I really like the way Helen Haidle put it in her book The Real 12 Days of Christmas:

"Like children joyfully following a piper, these disciples followed Jesus. They also called others to follow Him. They piped an everlasting tune of great joy -- the salvation message of Jesus' resurrection from the dead."

Amen, and amen.