Undignified Dancing Mk 2

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.