On the fourth day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
four calling birds.

Would you believe that this is likely not the way the song was worded originally? We’re so used to having received the 4 calling birds on day 4 that anything seems a little strange. But in all likelihood the word calling was actually the word colly when the song was first written. But what in the world is a colly bird?

Since there are two possibilities for the word here, we’ll look at both of them. The first is the colly bird. A colly bird is actually a common blackbird. There’s nothing special about this bird aside from how ordinary and common it is. The four colly birds are reminders of the gift of the common and ordinary.

But overtime that word evolved into calling birds. A calling bird is a bird that sounds out what it hears. It calls to those around it. Take a walk through the woods on a calm afternoon and hear the birds calling back and forth to one another. Calling birds are all around us, we just don’t recognize them by that name.

So what do colly or calling birds have to do with the story of Christmas? And if this story has a throwback to the Bible what is it?

No matter which word we choose here it’s actually pretty easy to see once it’s pointed out to you. Remember how the colly bird was an ordinary blackbird. The only thing special about this bird was how common it was? Well, think of the four men who wrote about the life of Jesus in what we have as the gospels. There was nothing special about them. They were common guys who just followed the Spirit’s leading. They were so ordinary that their writing of the bible was a bit surprising. And what did they do? They called out what they heard and saw. They were calling birds of sorts. Their words still echo around the world like a bird’s calling echos through the woods on a calm summer afternoon.

So on this day we celebrate the gift of the four gospel accounts of Jesus’ life. These four common men wrote what they heard and saw. That writing still calls to us today.

Merry Christmas for yet another day!