The song and dance of God
Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,
For he will speak peace to his people. Psalm 85:8
Read Jeremiah 31:2—6
Maybe I’d be reading this into the text, but I sort of can’t help doing it. For I know that at the beginning of God’s work the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted together for joy.[1] I know there is joy in heaven, boundless joy, ready to erupt at the prompting of one sinner turning.[2] My point is that God sings! It has long been part of my doctrine that God loves me. I would have said again, quite properly, that I only love because God first loved me. But when I said that, did I also mean, because God sings over me of his everlasting love and continued faithfulness? That I sing to God because God sings over me? Because God dances I take up the tambourine and dance merrily. I go to it. I plant. I harvest. I enjoy the fruit. My life is at its most complete because God sings over me.
Father of all humanity, Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, and my Father, you have loved me with an everlasting love, with love that never tires. Because it is love it is always renewing. Your forever love is new as the day. It is as vital as a dance and as fresh as a new song. It must revive me, or it is hardly your love, not truly everlasting. You do not grow weary. But me, if I am to hear your song, if I am to join your song, if I am to move with your dance, I know it requires that my youth be restored; I become as a child.[3] That my follies be thrown off; I become as a virgin. That my cares be cast on you;[4] I become faithful. Find me, this night, your child, a virgin, and faithful.
[1] Job 38:7
[2] Luke 15:7,10
[3] Mark 10:15
[4] Matthew 11:28—30