Only Jesus’ worship was truly total. Only Jesus’ worship drew the ultimate scorn that led to his crucifixion in our place on a cross. Only Jesus’ worship was perfectly God-centered. And, thanks be to God, our worship (even our meager/lame/reserved/self-conscious attempts), is covered over in Jesus’ perfect worship of the Father.
The point of Davidic worship isn’t to make us feel guilty about our lesser attempts. The point of Davidic worship is to point us to Jesus’ perfect attempt. And as a result:
We’re free to be expressive and joyful and undignified in our worship (though we do keep Paul’s instructions and admonitions in mind). Because we’re covered! Our worship is “before the Lord,” and acceptable to God, and delighted in because of Jesus.
We’re also free to bring our self-conscious, uninspired, weary, off-beat, lackadaisical worship to God, and not be afraid that he’s disappointed in our lameness, because God sees our feeble attempts of worship through the lens of his son’s perfect (and ongoing) worship on our behalf.
We could all use some encouragement from time to time to loosen up, to grow up and to look up in our worship, and stop being so incredibly self-conscious and reserved. David is a good example of this.
But ultimately, we all need to look to Jesus, the perfect worshipper, and find our freedom to worship, yes, even to dance with all our might, not in feelings of guilt or obligation, but instead in the good news of being covered up in him and raised to life forevermore.
