Physical Worship in the Newer Testament: Standing, Dancing, Jumping

Physical Worship in the Newer Testament: Standing, Dancing, Jumping.

“The bodily gesture itself is the bearer of the spiritual meaning, which is worship. Without the heart of worship, the bodily gesture would be meaningless, while the spiritual act itself must of its very nature express itself in the bodily gestures.” (Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, The Theology of Kneeling).

The Jewish Roots to Physical Worship. With the Hebrews, Praise was an Art Form: exuberant with raised arms; exultation accompanied by holy dance; spontaneous songs sung during worship; combining a petition with a praise in the same breath; making a joyful noise with a loud shout of celebration; praise with hands lifted up high in the air and arms extended; bowing low in adoration; lifting up one’s whole being to God in praise, including heart, hands, voice, eyes, soul; spin around in joy and praise; jump for joy; to declare praise very loudly like a roaring lion; bless God on bended knee, praising Him humbly while kneeling; to allow silence itself to praise God, blessing Him in reverence without exclamations but with soft murmuring; magnify and glorify God in praise by raving about His greatness and spiritual weight; to invite all of nature to join you in praise and worship; praise with music, celebrating in song with voice and/or stringed instruments; to enjoy a circle dance with other worshipers, as well as the more spontaneous whirling and twirling in the spirit. As Dr. Ellen Davis said in her book Getting Involved with God, “The area of ancient Israel’s greatest creativity, and so what they did best, was the praise of God.”

Being Physical with Worship. The spiritual and the physical belong together, and are in fact inseparable. We were created as whole beings with a mysterious fusion of body and spirit and soul and body and everything else that constitutes our personhood. Not only that, the Incarnation reveals how important the body is to Creator God. In a sense, the idea, the reality, of God taking on a physical body was actually a spiritual act. We need to make sure we incarnate our worship. So worship of our Creator needs to include the body if we want to worship with our whole selves. Physical acts of worship become meaningless if it is done thoughtlessly, without its intention of worshipping God. But worship is not limited to the nonphysical, the so-called spiritual ether, and one wonders if one is can even be fully involved in the act of worship without the body. So physical gestures are invaluable in the act of worship. They can point to spiritual truths, they can stimulate worshipful acts, and they can enable a fuller expression of awe, lament, adoration and worship. Using the body helps us to put the Gospel message into motion. The movement of one’s body can be a sign that communicates a message… Do you want to signal to God that you submit to Him, that you want to confess to Him, that you adore Him, that you intend to follow Him in trust? There are gestures and postures and movements that can express what is on your heart without any use of words. Body language is vital to spiritual life and expression. In this blog series entitled “Physical Worship,” I will focus on the worshipful use of the body through such gestures and movements as: prostration before God; sitting at the feet of Jesus; standing in respect and oneness; kneeling in submission; walking in order to follow; running the good race; jumping for joy; lifting up the heart and hands; offering the kiss of peace; and the act of crossing oneself with the sign of the Cross. This is important: Physical postures and actions during worship reflect the attitudes of the heart, but they can also help produce the attitudes of the heart.

1. STAND (“Histemi”) = The Greek word which means to stand up, stand by, stand forth, stand still.

• Standing in place has been the traditional position of prayer and worship in the Judeo-Christian faith since ancient times. Jesus could assume in Mark 11:25that one would be standing when in prayer, because that was just the way it was done… “When you stand praying…” Virtually all the ancient Jewish prayers required that a person stand. There were many reasons to stand… Gratitude for God’s goodness; proclamation of God’s Word; the awe of His power; the reverence for God’s Name; the honor due God’s presence; the recognition of His holiness; the respectful attention that was needed to be alert and focused. All of these heartfelt attitudes invited the believer to stand, and that body position was traditional in the Christian church until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century AD, when the focus in the protesting churches went from standing to worship to sitting to listen.
• Orthodox Tradition. The Christian churches in the Orthodox tradition have continued to embrace standing throughout prayer and worship and the proclamation of the Scripture. Standing was favored in the early Church when in prayer or worship, and they have maintained that tradition. According to the Orthodox priest Patrick Reardon, standing was symbolic of “dignity, attentiveness, readiness, obedience and vigilance.” In the Temple everyone stood and worshiped, whether a priest or a common worshiper. To this day, one would have a difficult time finding a chair in an Easter Orthodox church when in prayer and during the worship service. Everyone remains standing. Comfortably sitting while worshiping would be unthinkable, considered a sign of disrespect, except for nursing mothers, pregnant mothers, the sick or the elderly.
• Participating in Heavenly Worship. The Orthodox churches have an important reason for retaining the standing position during worship services. They have maintained a fervent belief that worship here on earth is a participation in heavenly worship. Attending a worship service in church here is with the consciousness that we are joining with the multitudes of angels and the cloud of witnesses as they worship around the throne. When one enters an Orthodox service, one is entering another world in a sense, the Kingdom of God, a slice of heaven on earth. And with those domes that are traditional in Orthodox churches, the worshippers are reminded that they are open to heaven, that they are experiencing a oneness with all the citizens of heaven in worship. And mirroring the angels in heaven, they stand. “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb… All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures.” (Revelation 7:9-11).

2. DANCE (“Orcheomai”) = A Greek term for dance, to lift up the feet, to set in motion.

• Jesus is calling the people’s attention to their unresponsiveness to joyful music, making a comparison to the children who imitated a wedding by piping dancing music and expecting their friends to dance. “To what shall I liken this generation? It is like little children sitting in the market places who call to their playmates, ‘We piped to you as we pretended a wedding song, and you did not dance (“orcheomai”); we wailed dirges pretending a funeral, and you did not mourn or weep aloud.” (Matthew 11:17).

3. CIRCLE DANCE (“Choros”) = The Greek term for a company of dancers formed in a circle for what was known as a ring dance or round dance. This is the root word for our terms, choreography and chorus.

Welcome Home | The Altar Music

• Jesus is highlighting the customary way to celebrate in the Jewish culture, with joyful dancing and lots of music. The Father wants us to rejoice in our deliverance from the far country and our returning home where we all belong. “… ‘Because this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!’ And they began to revel and feast and make merry. But his older son was in the field, and as he returned and came near to the house, he heard music and dancing (“choros”).” (Luke 15:25).

Lord Of The Dance Hymn (Contemporary Worship Song)

• Jesus did nothing to discourage dancing during His ministry on earth. He undoubtedly continued participating in religious dances, since He was so fully Jewish in all His ways. His most famous parable, the Prodigal Son, ends with celebrating, singing and dancing at the feast given by the Father in the son’s honor. (Luke 15). We know that to “rejoice” literally means to jump for joy, to leap with gladness of heart, and isn’t it wonderful that Luke spoke of Jesus “rejoicing greatly” in Luke 10:21. I like to imagine our Lord twirling and whirling and jumping for joy.
• The first five centuries of Christian worship more or less followed in their Judaic roots. There was dancing during worship and in festive processionals. They made distinctions between holy dancing in church and pagan dancing during the profane worship of unbelievers. In the mid-fourth century a church leader wrote this to his church members on Palm Sunday, “Rejoice in the highest, daughters of Zion! Rejoice and be glad! Leap boisterously! For behold, once again the King approaches. Once again perform choral dances, leap wildly, ye Heavens; sing hymns, ye Angels, and all you who dwell in Zion, and dance the ring dances.”  The sainted Gregory of Nyssa (4th C.) even went so far as to describe Jesus as “the One and Only Choreographer, the leader of dances on earth and in heaven.” 
• When reading the quote above referring to the “choral dance” and the “ring dance,” it is referring to the most popular type of dancing in worship during the early days of the Christian Church. In fact, in Acts 6:5, an early church leader in Jerusalem was named “Prochuras” which means “the one who leads the circle dance.” The name of the dance was the “Tripudium,” which means simply “Three.” Each dancer would put his/her hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them, and take three steps forward and one step back, symbolizing our walk with God as progressing a few steps and then inevitably making a mistake, and then progressing forward again. The dancers would use these steps as they danced in circles, whether around the churchyard, in the streets, or even around the altar in the church sanctuary. Many contemporary Christian churches have continued the dancing of the Tripudium in worship.
• Some early Church leaders, including Augustine and Chrysostom, began to frown on dancing in worship because it was starting to resemble the pagan forms of dancing in their worship. So for the most part until the Reformation, church worship dance was somewhat limited to festive and expressive processionals during the worship service. The Reformation put an end to that as well, and the result has been a tradition of Protestant churches frowning on dancing during worship.

       4. JUMP FOR JOY (“Agalliao”) – Greek term for rejoice that literally means jump for joy; excessive gladness; skipping with delight; joy multiplied; great exultation; leaping with exuberance; often expressed verbally as well (as in Acts 2:26, “My tongue was very glad!“); the joy is usually based on God, His character, and His benefits.

• Jesus Advises His Disciples to Jump for Joy when Persecuted. “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things against you falsely on my account. Be glad, supremely joyful, and leap for joy (“agalliao’), for your reward in heaven is great, for in this same way people persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  (Matthew 5:11-12).
• Jesus Jumped for Joy. When the seventy appointed missionaries returned from their journeys, Jesus received them in a wonderful way, by jumping for joy and skipping with delight. “In that same hour, Jesus rejoiced (“agalliao”) in the Holy Spirit and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have concealed these things relating to salvation from the wise and understanding and learned, and revealed them to babes – the unskilled and untaught. Yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will and good pleasure.” (Luke 10:21).
• Mother Mary Jumped for Joy.  After her cousin Elizabeth exulted in Mary’s supernatural pregnancy, Mary was overjoyed as she exclaimed, “My soul magnifies and extols the Lord, and my spirit rejoices (agalliao) in God my Savior!” (Luke 1:46-47).
• 5. SKIP AND LEAP (“Skirteo”) = to skip, to leap, to jump.
• Unborn Baby John the Baptist Jumps for Joy in His Mother’s Womb. When the pregnant Elizabeth approaches her pregnant cousin Mary, look at what happens!  “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud cry, and then exclaimed, Blessed above all other women are you, Mary! And favored of God is the Fruit of your womb! And how have I deserved that this honor should be granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me! For listen, the instant the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb jumped for joy (“skirteo”)! (Luke 1:42-44).
• 6. SPRING UP (“exallomai” and “hallomai”) = to spring forth dramatically, to leap vigorously, to jump up in a lively manner.
• The Healed Man Jumped for Joy in the Temple. In the Temple, no less! “Then Peter took hold of the man’s right hand with a firm grip and raised him up. And at once his feet and ankle bones became strong and steady. And leaping forth (“exallomai”) he stood and began to walk, and he went into the Temple with Peter and John, walking and leaping (“hallomai”) and praising God!” (Acts 3:7-8).

CBYO Lord of the Dance Royal Albert Hall