If you're a fan of, or at least familiar with contemporary worship music from the start of the current millennium, you might recall a song "We Will Dance." Written and originally performed by David Ruis, it's been covered by several other artists and sung in hundreds, maybe thousands, of congregations. About the third time we sang it at Trinity Assembly of God in Georgetown, Kentucky, (thank you, Anthony Martin), I realized, "This is a wedding waltz!"
Given that the key idea of the song is dancing at the Great Wedding of the Son of Man and his Bride, the Church, that seems fitting. Maybe even, well, obvious. The song has a definite, pulsing, three-quarter rhythm. Straight back with the right foot, swoop over and back with the left… Yessir, it's a waltz.
Sing a song of celebration
Lift up a shout of praise
for the Bridegroom will come,
the glorious One
And Oh, we will look on His face
We'll go to a much better place.
My dear friend, Bill Jolliff, when we were both grad students at Ohio State, observed one evening during a brief lull in our guitar playing, "We worry too much and dance too little."
That resonated with me back then, nearly forty years ago, and still resonates today. I think I have spent too much time worrying about the usual frets of this life and too little time contemplating "the glory that is to be revealed." Too much time aggravating myself over perceived slights and hurts and too little time reminding myself that I am a child of a King. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I so quickly and enthusiastically embraced this song.
I still remember standing with a couple hundred other worshippers, hands lifted toward heaven, gently swaying, singing these words:
We will dance on the streets that are golden
The glorious bride and the great Son of man
From every tongue and tribe and nation
We'll join in the song of the Lamb.
In the elevation of that worship, everything else disappeared. I visualized throngs of believers, gently moving in unified rhythm, hearts filled with adoration, joined in immortal celebration. Peace, contentment, joy, release. Which is, I believe, what God desires for those who love him and who love his coming.
Shall we dance? Indeed, my friend, indeed. Let us dance.
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