Dance

When I hear the word dance, my heart does a joyous pirouette. It is one of my treasured words* because of what it has come to represent to me.

My earliest encounters with dance are not the ones that contributed to my special love for this word. My first experience was around age five. I remember my blue tulle tutu skirt, my ballet slippers, and my blue flowered parasol. I have no memory of the lessons and only one from my first recital: I fell behind the rest of the little ballerinas because I was searching the audience for my daddy.

As revealed in a previous post, I didn’t continue with ballet after that. It wasn’t due to my sub-par performance or that I didn’t enjoy the activity. Rather, my mother was tired of having to drag me away from The Lone Ranger on Saturday mornings to get me to class. Westerns beat dance to the draw for this aspiring cowgirl.

I attended one junior high dance. Surprisingly, I had the courage to actually get out on the floor. It was a dance in which everyone does the same few steps over and over with no partner required. It was so much fun at the time that I refused to think of how dorky I must have looked. But afterward, I once again confined my moves to the privacy of my bedroom.

…Until the sophomore musical. I was coordinated enough to get a role as a flower girl/dancer in My Fair Lady. It was thrilling to be a part of group choreography. At this point, however, dance was still just a fun activity enjoyed with my classmates. It hadn’t yet achieved treasured status.

Dance is simply defined as moving rhythmically to music. When I became interested in watching the Olympics in the ‘80s, my favorite events quickly became figure skating and gymnastics. I appreciate the beauty that I can’t make my own body achieve. I am captivated by the precision of every movement and the graceful flow of body and music as one. Exquisite and tasteful dance was becoming a metaphor of what I want my life to be: oneness between my spirit and Jesus, the Music of my life.

Dance expresses ideas and emotions. In the late ‘80s, my pastor’s wife approached me about being part of a worship dance team she wanted to start at church. My body said I couldn’t do it, but my spirit exalted. I was at a place in my life where I wanted and needed a way to more fully express my adoration and joy to the Lord.

We learned Jewish dance steps, took a couple of ballet lessons – no tutus this time – and incorporated sign language gleaned from books into the routines we created to accompany worship music. What a treasure that became to me! It provided a new way for me to convey my love to God.

When CW and I were married, the dance team were my bridesmaids. They danced down the aisle, praising God to the processional “Glory, Glory to the King.” During the ceremony, I danced while CW sang to me. We meant for it to illustrate the relationship between God and his Church, which is what marriage represents (Ephesians 5:31-32).

These later experiences have added to the special meaning dance holds for me, and what scripture says deepens it even more. Although there are negative expressions of dance in the Bible, such as pleasing man rather than God (Matthew 14:6-8) and idolatrous worship (Exodus 32:19), it is most often presented in a highly favorable light.

Solomon said there is “a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). The Hebrew word is raqad and means “to skip about.” Can’t you just see little children skipping, running, twirling – carefree and full of life?

Dance was often part of celebration in the Bible. We read of an annual feast “when the girls of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing” (Judges 21:21). A father held a feast with “music and dancing” for his lost son who had returned home safely (Luke 15:25). I like this elaboration for the Greek word choros used in Luke: “dancing, which in the Bible is viewed as wholesome (when done modestly, etc.)” (HELPS Word-studies).

Dancing was seen in the joyousness following victories. When Jephthah returned home from subduing the Ammonites, his daughter came to meet him “dancing to the sound of tambourines!” (Judges 11:34). After the mighty victories of David and King Saul, all the men returned home, and “women came out from all the towns of Israel…with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes” (1 Samuel 18:6). Following the safe crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites and the subsequent destruction of their enemies in the waters, Miriam led all the women in dancing with their tambourines (Exodus 15:20).

Dancing did not represent just a happy feeling. It was an expression of praise to God for who he is and what he had done for them. In a song of victory celebration, the psalmist sang, “Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp” (Psalm 149:3). Through their dance, they worshiped God.

Jeremiah described a time when the Israelites had abandoned God: “Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning” (Lamentations 5:15). But the Lord spoke about when he would bring them out of captivity: “⁴I will build you up again…Again you will take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful… ¹³Then maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness…” (Jeremiah 31:4, 13). Sin turns our dancing to mourning, but when we are restored to God, our mourning gives way once again to light hearts and dancing feet.

Did you catch the part about “young men and old as well” will dance and be glad? Dancing was not just for the women. In fact, David liked to kick up his heels.

Psalm 30 is about David’s acknowledgment of God rescuing him from danger. It is also about restoration after his disobedience that had brought a plague on the entire nation. As a result of these graces God showered on him, David was able to dance again. “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy” (Psalm 30:11).

After more than 75 years of the absence of the Ark of the Lord, David was excited to bring it to the capital city of Jerusalem. While it was being brought, “David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might” (2 Samuel 6:14). The Hebrew word is karar and means to whirl. He couldn’t contain his jubilation. His wife despised him for his behavior, but he said, “²¹…I will celebrate before the Lord. ²²I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes…” (2 Samuel 6:21-22). David’s uninhibited praise to his God was more important than what anyone else might think of him or his own self-consciousness.

I heard the song “Lord of the Dance” for the first time in my college fellowship group. I loved it at first hearing. The light and lively folk tune makes the heart dance, if not the feet. And the lyrics tell of Jesus dancing at creation and all through his hardships on earth. One of my favorite lines follows his burial: “But I am the dance, and I still go on.” He isn’t just Lord of the Dance – he is the Dance. He is the unending Dance of Life, and he says, “I’ll lead you in the dance.” (You can listen to the song here.)

Dance is

• moving to the rhythm of God’s heart
• a sweet fragrance of love flowing to the throne of God
• restoration after waywardness
• a personal invitation from the Lord of the Dance to celebrate life with him

This is why dance is a word in my treasure chest.

*Treasured Words are words that have special value to me. Hearing them causes brilliant light and comforting warmth to radiate from a place deep inside me and fill my soul with a sense of well-being.

Feature photo by wirestock on Freepik

Scripture quotations are from NIV.

Hebrew and Greek definitions and commentary notes are from Bible Hub. See Resources.