Undignified Dancing MK 2
Over the past two weeks I’ve talked about living victoriously in Christ. For as children of God we can. Today I’m looking into ceebrating living lives of rejoicing in our understanding of God.
Read 2 Samuel 6:6-23as the main passage for the message.
Now within this story, this passage of scripture, there is quite a bit going on it’s got more gripping stuff than a Spiderman Movie, however I will leave some of it for you to look into yourselves. But a bit of background, David remember, was a shepherd boy, gets into favour with the King, King Saul. Firstly, Saul thought David was a great kid, he killed the Philistine giant Goliath, soothed Saul by playing the harp when he was in a depressed mood, and was a worthy soldier that Saul put in charge of his armies. This was all good until Saul got jealous of David’s abilities as the commander of his army. Eventually David becomes King and Jerusalem becomes his city, to this day, ‘The City of David.’
Here is a passage describing why in 1 Samuel 18:7, “As they danced, they sang: "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands." The they who danced are Saul’s female subjects. After this Saul decides to allow David to marry Michal his youngest daughter, the price of the dowry being one hundred Philistine foreskins, ick, why because in the gathering, in the fighting the Philistines he believes David will be killed. But David gathers the dowry and marries Michal.
1 Samuel 18:28-29 says “When Saul saw and knew that the LORD was with David, and that Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him, Saul became still more afraid of him, and he remained his enemy the rest of his days.
But wait there’s more; Saul’s jealousy and fear of David continued until we read in 1 Samuel 25:44 that Saul gives his daughter who was married to David to another bloke by the name of Palti. Then after the death of Saul, David decides he’s getting Michal back and sends one of his mates around to reacquire her. This occurs in 2 Samuel 3:14-22. Like sands through the hour glass so where the days of their lives, this is dysfunctional relationship stuff to the max.
The relationship between David and this wife Michal is messy, remember he had a number of wives, seven are mentioned in the two books of Samuel but the number is not really clear.
This messy relationship continues to the point where in the second book of Samuel we get this description of David taking the ark into the city Jerusalem, his City, The City of David.
This depiction talks of how David was wearing an ephod or the priestly garments. That he danced with all his might before the Lord, this was a dance of worship, rejoicing, oh the joy of knowing he was now right with God, his fear of the Lord had ceased because he saw that God had blessed Obed-Edom because of the Ark, after his being fearful of the Ark of God because of the death of Uzzah. So here we have David dancing with all his might in excitement and joy celebrating before the Lord, David recognising God’s power and that God was to be worshipped.
What follows is this account of how David then got his ear chewed by Michal, his wife. Interestingly there are a probably a number of reasons why Michal reacted the way she did and why she slammed David as she did.
A) The scriptures as I’ve already pointed out say that she loved David, she was his first wife, since then, through Saul’s actions she had been separated from him, given to another man by her father the previous King. We don’t know what had happened while she was married to her new husband, but we do know that this second husband had followed her crying as she was carried away.
B) As the Ark of the Lord was taken into the city David had been dancing with all his might before the Lord, it appears by the account we have that the garment, the priestly ephod may have come open and he revealed more of body than would have been deemed usually socially acceptable.
C) That there was certainly tension between the high-born wife and the low born husband, remember that she had been the Kings daughter, and David was a shepherd boy before King Saul invited him into his circle, Michal slams David for being undignified. David’s answer is to point out that what he was doing, he was doing for the Lord. “It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. A bit of a case of you’ve had your say and my response is “Whatever.” I am the King, and I’ll do what I want.
David makes it quite clear to his wife that his dancing is alright, that before God he was celebrating, why because he was God’s chosen king. He was no longer in fear of the ark, because he now understood his relationship with God and rejoices in that understanding. He even points out that in his worship he will allow his own humiliation.
When we look at this drama taking place, we see a number of things:
• It is okay to dance as a form of worship, Ecclesiastes tells us “There is a time to morn and a time to dance.” (Ecclesiastes 3:4)
• In Michal’s case it was not wise to criticise the one doing the dancing, the rejoicing before God in David’s case. The outcome for her was not a good one, it looks like David ignored her after this time, though we can’t be one hundred-percent sure. However, there were no children.
• That Michal for some reason had lost her respect for David she went from loving him in 1 Samuel 18:20, so much so that Saul was pleased when she told him, to despising David in her heart. (2 Samuel 6:16) That word despised is interesting; it has synonyms such as hated, loathed and detested. She had gone off David in a major way. Somehow, I don’t think her berating David was all about the dancing.
• That David allowed his position to be small in comparison to the position of the Lord. He was willing to be humiliated for the Lord’s gain. To allow the slave girls to see his respect for his God.
What I want to do today is ask is it all about the dance? It could be, what if we look at this situation as a bit of a metaphor for life.
We see a few things here that relate to the Power of God. Uzzah was struck down because he had put a hand on the Ark in a way that angered God.` Some might say “Well really if God is so loving why would he do this?” The answer to that is that God had given commands to Moses back in the day as to how the Ark was to be carried in Exodus 25, Gold overlayed acacia wood poles, held by four gold rings, the poles were to remain in the rings and the Ark was to be carried by the poles. The Ark was to be carried by Levites, priests of the tribe of Levi. So here we have this depiction of the Ark, the vessel that carried the book of the law, Aaron’s rod that budded and a sample of Manna contained in a gold jar,. You could say that the Ark was a most revered object. (refer, Hebrews 9:4). This ark, well the whole thing was covered in gold and God’s presence would be there between the wings of gold covered angels. We read that here it is sitting on the back of an ox cart, in contradiction to God’s instructions.
Then a Levite, one of those with the knowledge of how the Ark is to be handled sees the ox stumble and reaches out and grabs the Ark. God had warned the Levites if this was to happen there would be serious consequences. Uzzah, also known as Uzziah, was of the clan of Merari (1 Chronicles 6:29 One of the sons of Levi. God had actually been very patient with those transporting the ark, the twelve miles they had travelled, there were rules, they broke them, and the outcome was as it was told it would be. Imagine: if His Royal Highness King Charles came to visit and The Prime Minister picked him up in an old Toyota Ute and threw his bags on the back tray instead of arranging a top-level well-groomed Limousine. Well, the Ark of God’s covenant where His presence resided dropped on the back of an Ox cart was not the sharpest of transport plans either.
But we also see God in his power blessing Obed-Edom the Gittite and his household during the time he has possession of the Ark. Obed-Edom was another Levite.
Then we see David and his team once David has seen the blessing of Obed-Edom carry the Ark correctly, they knew what they should have done, then finally they did it. After six steps David made an appropriate sacrifice to the Lord. That is why David celebrates with so much joy, because he is humbled knowing that if he follows God’s commands it will go well for him and his people. He rejoices knowing that God is God and is to be worshipped with total abandon.
As a Christian, what matters, is it what God thinks or what others think of our lives?
In society today we meet others who are opposed to our worship, people who may think of the honour and reverence we have for God as foolishness. Like Michal they have their reasons, people have their own journey going on with God, each and every one of us has our own individual journey with God. Even those who deny God’s existence are in journey with God. Denying the existence of God does not mean he does not exist outside of that persons denial. Paul States in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The shame of it is that by denying him those who do also deny his grace, his mercy, the change The Holy Spirit can bring and the abundant life they could be living in him. Living lives of rejoicing in their knowledge of him, as we do.
Was David wrong to dance, to celebrate before the Lord? Do we dance before the Lord? This was a King who had seen the power of God in his life. Dancing, and other forms of feeling the joy of the Lord in our lives is an important thing, what matters is not the burdens we feel here and now but the knowledge that we to are like David, chosen, that we are part of a royal priesthood, that we too can celebrate, rejoice before God. We have testimonies we can celebrate that we can dance with joy before the Lord through 2025 because of, God’s love, God’s grace, our being redeemed by God, given the ability through Christ to live sanctified lives. To celebrate into eternity.
While David allowed his own public humiliation for the sake of God, for God’s kingdom, so that God was honoured above him, Michal missed out on blessing because of her attitude of disgust at the worship of David. Are there times when by criticising others in their worship, or their living before the Lord, do we possibly deny ourselves of the blessings they are living in.
Do we do that, I think of times when I have missed out on blessings that I have seen others receive around me, because I would not stand before the Lord, knell before the Lord, raise my hands in worship to him because of my concern for what others might think, through fear of what I might experience. Jesus has set us free. We also have an opportunity when we find ourselves criticising others to look at ourselves in the same way we are criticising those people and start some self-improvement. As I said earlier we have testimonies we can celebrate that we can dance with joy before the Lord through 2025 because of, God’s love, God’s grace, our being redeemed through Christ, given the ability to live sanctified lives. To celebrate into eternity.
There is a great deal to celebrate about our relationship with God, beyond the wonder of the creation we are part of, like David we can celebrate God’s presence with us, dancing before him, meditating on his word, living in the presence of his Holy Spirit, as we put celebrate before him we will know his power and his blessings.
Celebrate before the Lord.
