In the anthem we were just now treated to by Old South’s Chancel Choir, Jesus sings a love song to humankind. He sings to us, to you and me. Addressing us as his true love, the carol is a kind of serenade … a song in which he invites us to dance with him.

The carol, Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day, comes from medieval times. The use of dance as a metaphor for life is at least as old.

Perhaps it is for this reason that last night a great dance was held, arguably the greatest annual dance in the world. It is held each year on December 10th in Oslo, Norway. Last night hundreds of people danced at the ball and banquet that followed the presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize.

It is an odd and wonderful juxtaposition: all those serious recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize dancing the waltz in a gilded ballroom. Can you see it in your minds eye? Can you see Martin Luther King who struggled for civil rights? Can you see Mother Teresa who lived among the poorest of the poor? Can you see Mohamed ElBaradei, this year’s recipient, a man who battles with the most powerful nations of the world, struggling to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons? Can you imagine them? Can you see them – Martin, Teresa, Mohamed – dancing?

In 1964 when Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, he was hesitant to step onto the dance floor. He and Corretta were expected to open the ball with a waltz. But as a Baptist minister Dr. King had decided never to dance in public so as not to offend the older members of his congregation. Dr. King was not personally opposed to dancing and had been a wonderful dancer in his youth. It’s just that he knew many Baptists didn’t approve and he didn’t want to offend. On the night he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, however, he threw these scruples to the wind. He and Corretta danced and danced.

I don’t know whether Mother Teresa danced in 1979 when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But I like to think that she did. I like the image of Martin, the civil rights battler, and Teresa, the woman who loved lepers, and Mohamed, the man determined to decrease nuclear weapons … I like to imagine them dancing. I like to imagine them dancing because they surely deserved relief from the weight of the worlds they carried on their shoulders. Their ability to dance reminds us that the worlds troubles do not need to paralyze us, or deprive us of what joy there is, or shrivel our spirits.

When my husband and I were married, our friend who officiated at the wedding spoke of dance as a metaphor for marriage. He described marriage as a way of moving in synchronicity with another. He said that to love and cherish each other for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, was a kind of dance. For the dance to flow, each partner must be keenly sensitive to the moves and moods of the other. In a good marriage, he said, the one who leads and the one who follows, must and should alternate, depending on the circumstance.

About eight years ago my husband, Peter, was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He had a particularly aggressive form of the disease and we responded with aggressive treatments. Alas, despite every medical effort, the cancer kept reappearing. It has now metastasized into his bones. A week ago on Saturday evening he had major surgery as a consequence of the narcotics he takes to manage the bone pain. The surgery took a toll on him and he is still in the early stages of recovery.

Over a week ago when I took Peter to the hospital, he and I were still dancing. We both want to tell you this morning – Peter from his hospital room and I from this pulpit – that we are still dancing … though the music has changed and so has the tempo. Today we are doing a slow dance and we are learning new ways to follow each other’s lead.

We also know that while we are off on a corner of the dance floor, we are all a part of this dance … this dance of life to which Jesus has invited us. Peter and I have felt that so acutely as you have responded to his medical news with overwhelming kindness. We have felt your prayers and we are surrounded by cards, gifts, food and offers of assistance in the most amazing ways. As Peter is unable to eat, many of you have directed your culinary attentions to me. Who would have guessed that Old South contained so many Jewish mothers!

The dance to which Jesus invites us encompasses the various stages of his life. It celebrates the birth of Jesus, but it also anticipates his whole life: his suffering and death. Just as we dance with him through the whole of his life, so too does he dance with us through the whole of ours: the good and the bad, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.

This is the holy dance to which Jesus invites us. Those who will be joining Old South today as our newest members, have responded to his invitation to join the dance. Earl, Kurt, Richard & Cynthia, Thomas, George, Bridget, Jay and Christian: welcome to this dance.

Welcome to this divine-human dance that is characterized, as is most dancing, by intimacy. Indeed, it is this very intimacy that makes our lives bearable. Mother Teresa made bearable the lives of people with leprosy, by writing their names on her dance card … when no one else would. Martin Luther King made life bearable by choreographing an intimate and non-violent dance, in holy defiance of the brutality of racism.

Mohamed ElBaradai labors to make all our lives more bearable, by decreasing the amount of nuclear weapons the nations of the world aim at one another. Our God makes this life bearable for all of us by walking with us, by sending Jesus to be with us, and in the end, which is our beginning, by overcoming death.

Medieval Christians likened life to a dance as a way of expressing their conviction that the spirit can soar even when the body is crushed. To join the dance to which Jesus invites us is to express and celebrate our ultimate freedom. We may be constrained and limited by the punishing realities of disease or oppression or hurricane or war or poverty. But our ultimate freedom is in found in the story we tell over and over again this time of year. It is the story of a love song and an invitation to dance … to dance throughout all the stages of our lives in intimate communion with God.

Welcome to this holy dance.