The King Who Danced in the Street

Do you know what David wanted, more than a crown, more than a castle? He wanted God to come home.

The long hiding years were over. Saul was gone, and David was king at last, with a city of his own called Jerusalem. But something was still missing. For a long, long time, God's special golden chest, the ark, had been far away. The ark was the place where God promised to come near, to live close, to be with his people. And God wanted to come home even more than David wanted him to. David could not bear for the ark to stay away one more day.

So he went to bring it home.

Oh, what a day that was. There were trumpets. There were harps. There were people shouting so loud the hills rang the sound back again. And right in the middle of it all came the king himself.

David danced.

Kings are supposed to dance carefully, chin up, robe just so. David danced with all his might. He leaped. He spun. He forgot to look proper. He forgot to look like a king at all. His whole heart was so full of gladness that his feet simply could not hold still. God was coming home, and nothing in all the world made David happier than that.

But someone was watching from a high window. Her name was Michal. When she saw the king jumping and twirling in the street, her face went cold. A king should hold still, she thought. A king should look grand.

When David came in, she told him so. Stop being silly, she said. You are embarrassing yourself.

Maybe someone has said that to you too. That your joy was too big. That you should sit down and hold still and look proper.

David shook his head. "I was dancing for the Lord," he said. "And I would dance sillier still. For there is no gladness like the gladness of God coming near."

Michal stood at her window, all alone, with no song in her at all.

Yet there was an ache hidden inside this happy day. The ark could only come so close. It had to live behind a curtain, in a tent, shut away where no one could go. The people could dance outside, but they could not go in. God was near, and still just out of reach. And every heart that loved him wondered: will it always be like this?

One day God himself would come, not in a golden chest, not behind a curtain, but walking our own roads on his own two feet. Jesus would carry God's nearness right into the middle of us, right where we live, close enough to touch.

Then every one of God's children could come all the way in, and laugh, and leap, and dance with all their might, and never once be told their joy was too big.

That night the ark rested in its tent in David's city, and David lay glad down to his toes, already dreaming a new dream: God had come home to Jerusalem. Perhaps a king could build him a house.