#Jesus culture dance with me scriptures how to
Had ye known how to suffer, ye would know how to suffer no more. Had not the Father sent me to you as a Word.īeholding what I suffer, ye know me as the Sufferer.Īnd when ye had beheld it, ye were not unmoved īut rather were ye whirled along, ye were kindled to be wise. Ye could not know at all what things ye endure, I have no resting place: I have the earth. Ye who dance not, know not what we are knowing.įain would I flee: And fain would I remain.įain would I be ordered: And fain would I set in order.įain would I be infolded: Fain would I infold. We give thanks to thee, O shadowless light!įain would I be saved: And fain would I save.įain would I be released: And fain would I release.įain would I be pierced: And fain would I pierce.įain would I be borne: Fain would I bear.įain would I hearken: Fain would I be heard.įain would I be cleansed. The lyrics are Holst’s own translation from the Greek (save for the prelude, which is based on two plainchants and is in Latin): Prelude ( Vexilla Regis Prodeunt and Pange Lingua) (The lovely face you see repeated fivefold is our composer, Mr. The performance below is by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. The work was written for two mixed choruses, a female semi-chorus, and an orchestra, and it lasts about twenty-two minutes. The text received greater attention in 1917, when Gustav Holst set a portion of it (known as The Hymn of Jesus) to music. But some surviving fragments were discovered in 1897 and published (in English translation from the Greek) in 1899 by Cambridge University Press. The Acts of John was rejected by the church as heretical in the fourth century, so almost all copies were destroyed. This call-and-response song and accompanying round dance are thought to have been used in the liturgy of some of the early Gnostic communities. I will be kept in mind, being all mind” ( Barnstone and Meyer). Jesus starts off the song by ascribing glory and praise to the Father, and then he moves into a bunch of riddlelike self-declarations: “I will be born and I will bear. He said, ‘Respond Amen to me’” ( Ehrman). The Acts of John, a second-century Gnostic text, records an episode that supposedly took place the night before Jesus’s crucifixion, in which Jesus leads his disciples in a song and dance: “‘Before I am delivered to them, let us sing a hymn to the Father and so go to meet what lies before us.’ So he commanded us to make a circle, holding one another’s hands, and he himself stood in the middle. You don’t have to accept the Gnostic worldview to be able to find some beauty and truth (however partial) in the poetry.
#Jesus culture dance with me scriptures series
Nevertheless, I thought the passage relevant to this series because it presents an early view of Jesus as a (literal) dancer. The words attributed to him below are probably not his own. * This post presents a picture of this Gnostic Jesus, not the historical Jesus of Nazareth we find in the four canonical Gospels. This text, like others in the Gnostic tradition, teaches that Jesus’s physical body was just an illusion, as was his crucifixion, and that salvation is attained only by those select few to whom he chooses to grant “secret knowledge,” not by all who respond in faith and obedience to the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Note to Reader: The Acts of John is not part of the Christian canon, mainly because of its docetic teachings, which read more like myth than history and depart widely from orthodox Christianity.