Will You Dance?
When you were a small child, did you ever have that playmate that wanted to dictate what everyone did on the playground? You had to play the games they wanted, you had to do everything they felt like doing. When Jesus analyzed his times, he did not flatter his generation. We can paraphrase him as saying, “Your generation is like a group of spoiled children, expecting the other children — and their God — to do as they demand.”
His actual words: “But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling to their fellows, and saying “We have piped unto you, and you did not dance; we have mourned unto you, and you did not lament.” (Matthew 11:16-7)
That generation played happy music and sad music, and expected the Messiah and John the Baptist to respond appropriately. If they played the flute, they expected John to tighten his belt and dance. If they played a sad song, they expected the Son of God to mourn. They expected compliance to their tune.
More than that, Jesus depicts the people of his day as children who change the rules and move the goalposts. When John did not come eating and drinking, they said he had a demon (Matt. 11:18). When Jesus did come eating and drinking, they called him a glutton and a drunkard (Matt. 11:19). Drink or not drink, eat or not eat, that generation would not be appeased with anything less than full allegiance.
Is our generation much different today? Today the children still play their music and expect Christ’s people to respond appropriately. “The course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2) still runs against Christ and his gospel, as it has since Adam and Eve first played the serpent’s song in Eden. Every generation promotes its own ideals and often is not satisfied until Christians love what it loves and hate what it hates.
The point is not that this world is unbroken by sin — including actual racism, sexism, injustice, and more. Rather, the point is that this generation, in total rebellion to the kingship of Jesus Christ, arrogantly seeks to enforce its view of right and wrong upon his people. The world desires, as it did with John the Baptist and the Messiah, our allegiance. They expect the sanctified band to approve and support their views on social and political issues they have tried to redefine and recalibrate.
The children of this generation will not agree to disagree — you must dance; you must mourn. They check your face for tears and your feet for proper rhythm. If you cry during their cheerful song, you have a demon. If your feet dance to another tune, you are a drunkard, sinner, and glutton. Refuse to consent, and the new powers try to cancel you as a champion of hate. Nonconformity to the world is met with consequences.
Some of us dance and cry with the world too long, it seems to me, out of a mistaken assumption. When they slander and dislike us for following Christ, our tender consciences might assume that we are to blame. We weren’t appealing enough when sharing the gospel. It must be our fault somehow. What could we have done differently?
When a spoiled child throws a tantrum, cries and yells, kicks, hits, and worse, does the parent automatically assume it’s because they are a bad parent? Of course not. So why doesn’t it occur to us that rejection by the world is not necessarily because of a bad decision we made but because of right decisions made by us and about us? “If you were of the world,” Jesus tells us, “the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19).
Our appeal, our cultural relevance, and our attempts at political correctness to the point of non-offense won’t serve as an adequate substitute for dancing. The world will still hate us — or should hate us (John 15:20) — because we aren’t the decisive reason for their hatred; Jesus is. His choosing us out of the world is fundamentally what makes the Christian hated in this life. When we notice the world against us, Jesus reminds us: “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18).
The children of this world dislike you because the children dislike Christ. They hate that the King, risen from the dead, still will not dance or weep on cue. While we continue to grow in our ability to faithfully engage unbelievers, remaining steadfast in the doctrine, Jesus would have us realize that their frowns and scowls and slanders are strikes at a Christ they can no longer crucify. He is and will remain victorious over sin, death, and Hell.
We must decide now. A moment will come — if it hasn’t already — where we must decide whom to displease: Christ or this generation. Perhaps you’ve already started to nod your head, rock, and sway to the beat.
Listen instead to Christ’s voice. Hear his gospel song calling you through the wilderness of this world. Draw closer to Him. Resist being swept away with this world: “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever” (I John 2:17).
And who knows if one of these children might see that shining light in you and turn in repentance to Christ.
