As on a Day of Festival

MORNING
Psalm 116 • Zephaniah 3:14-20 • Mark 15:14-20

EVENING
Psalm 30, 149 • Exodus 15:19-21 • 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

How many times since March have you danced joyously? Leapt with delight or exhilaration? Zero for me. I’ve swayed gently to some music or did a little wiggle-jiggle to make my family laugh but definitely no joyful dancing. I’ve been grateful for blessings, given thanks for loved ones’ safety and health but when I am honest with myself, I have not rejoiced in the Lord or in anything else.

Three of today’s readings — Psalms 116 and 30, and the excerpt from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians — are thanksgivings for recoveries from illnesses, both physical and spiritual. But I am spellbound with the reading from Zephaniah due to an unexpected conversation with my brother-in-law — God’s efficiency! It brought me razor-sharp focus on this word rejoice.

The primitive root of rejoice in Hebrew means to spin around under the influence of an intense emotion, to sing and dance; in Arabic, to go around or about, be excited to levity. Read this with that in mind: 

The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
as on a day of festival.

Rejoice over you — to dance, skip, leap, and spin around in joy — God dances with shouts of joy over us? Dances like you do at a festival or party? Why is that difficult to picture? Perhaps because we are more familiar with human love, love that can wither or be withdrawn, or stop when someone sees into the small, dark shadows of our heart. God’s love is so difficult to fully grasp — how could someone love us that much? How can God know all that is in our hearts and still love us?

I don’t know how. But I choose to believe, and picture such an expansive love that it makes God want to wiggle-jiggle at times, and at other times, hold us for comfort in a gentle, rocking sway.

I will remove disaster from you. . . 
I will deal with all your oppressors
I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise    
. . . I will bring you home

With those words of promise, we can rejoice. In this, our pandemic summer, we can still dance, knowing God is singing over us.

Written by Bernadette Reda

In addition to her favorite pastime of fixing broken things, Bernadette is still enjoying her Goshen woods and tormenting her loved ones with cheesy pun