Something was very different this Christmas. My family gathered around the piano to sing our traditional Christmas songs of joy and praise in celebration of our Christ’s birth; but this year familiar faces were gone. We were smaller in number than we had been in last year. A few of our missing family members chose to walk the paths of the world, and were separated by their choices from participating in our spiritual celebration. One went even further down the path of destruction, and embraced the wicked ways of a life in darkness. So our numbers were down, and our voices leaner and strained as we struggled to carry on with our praises to God, in the midst of loss and pain.
Suddenly, in the middle of one of the songs rejoicing at Christ’s birth, I felt the surge of His Holy Spirit move through our family congregation. Our music stopped instantaneously, as each of us literally absorbed His comfort and love, as He moved within us to heal the pains of loss.
It was one of those moments when time stands still. It was silent. There was no music, there was no talking, there was no praying nor was there any of the familiar outbursts of joy that we commonly displayed in His Presence. We were too pained and scarred, desperately needing of His Touch, as each of us became enveloped in His Presence, without thought of our own or each other’s time or place.
What a wonderful Touch it was. What a wonderful Christmas gift we received that day. Just as Christian’s burdens dropped from his shoulders in Pilgrims progress, our burdens of pain were removed and replaced with an even greater love than we had experienced before. With His healing presence, He brought a new and deeper understanding of Christmas Praise.
Back in the day, the Ark of the LORD God, the vessel that the actual presence of the LORD God inhabited had been removed from the Tabernacle in Jerusalem by forces against Israel. Eventually, King David was determined to bring the Ark back to the place it belonged inside Jerusalem.
When the opportunity and time was right, He took his priests and prepared them to deliver the most Holy Ark. As they moved the Ark, the oxen that pulled the cart shook, and the Ark began to fall. Uzzah, one of the cart drivers, and a very holy and faithful man, reached out to catch the Ark before it fell. The LORD God became very angry at Uzzah for touching the Holy Ark, and He smote him immediately, causing his death.
David was very upset and angry that the LORD God would punish Uzzah so severely when he was just trying to help. David could not figure out how to prevent the same thing from happening again, so he stopped the movement of the Ark, and left it in a house along the way.
After leaving it at the house of Obededom, he saw that great blessings of the LORD God were being bestowed upon Obededom. These blessings were so much greater than the risk of moving the Ark to Jerusalem, that David chose to try the task once again.
This time, as the Ark was moved, King David went before it, dancing and leaping for the LORD God. He put on the simplest of garments, and danced with a joy, and sang with a praise that could be heard by all. He danced and shouted and trumpeted with all his might, announcing to all the the Holy Presence of the LORD God, and His Holy Ark were entering the city of Jerusalem. There was no doubt left in any mind, that the holiest presence was arriving in the place He Willed.
And so the King of Israel danced. He was seen to be dancing in the most unroyal way by a very royal daughter of a former King. She chastised David, reminded him of his position, and reprimanded him for his unkingly-like dance through the streets of Jerusalem. His reply left no doubt to his position.
David would dance and leap and shout and sing and joyfully announce the presence of the LORD Godin the midst of human error and human frailties. There was no doubt to the LORD God in Heaven that David knew the holiness of His Presence. There was no doubt to the people of the world that watched the movement of God, that His Holiness was moving among them.
Our Christmas gathering, and our Christmas songs took on a deeper meaning. We were announcing the arrival of our precious and holy Jesus Christ. We began dancing and leaping and praising God, shouting and blowing our trumpets of His Arrival! It mattered not who was with us, nor how others interpreted our celebration. We were announcing our joy of Christ’s birth, and our anticipation of His return, as the Holiness of the LORD God moved among our gathering.
My feet are still dancing! Praise be to God!
Kathy L. McFarland, MDiv
Again, David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. 2 And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the LORD of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims. 3 And they set the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah: and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drave the new cart. 4 And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab which was at Gibeah, accompanying the ark of God: and Ahio went before the ark. 5 And David and all the house of Israel played before the LORD on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals. 6 And when they came to Nachon’s threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. 7 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God. 8 And David was displeased, because the LORD had made a breach upon Uzzah: and he called the name of the place Perez-uzzah to this day. 9 And David was afraid of the LORD that day, and said, How shall the ark of the LORD come to me? 10 So David would not remove the ark of the LORD unto him into the city of David: but David carried it aside into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. 11 And the ark of the LORD continued in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months: and the LORD blessed Obed-edom, and all his household.
12 And it was told king David, saying, The LORD hath blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with gladness. 13 And it was so, that when they that bare the ark of the LORD had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings. 14 And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. 16 And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul’s daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart. 17 And they brought in the ark of the LORD, and set it in his place, in the midst of the tabernacle that David had pitched for it: and David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD. (2 Samuel 6:1–17)
