But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. John 4:23 (NIV)
PART 1 – A Well and Worship
Jesus was making his way back to Galilee when he stopped at Jacob's well near a Samaritan village (Sychar) which was outside the city ruins of Shechem.
This particular spot held incredible historical importance. It was the place where God promised Abraham that his decedents would number the stars, it was where Jacob first settled when he returned to the Promised Land, it was where Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery. Many promises and agreements were made here, and over time most were broken. After re-entering the promised land, Joshua reinstituted an altar for sacrifice and worship to God at this very site. It was set up as a way of remembering God's faithfulness and promises. But even still, years later, this site became a hub of idolatry and pain during the years of the Assyrian conquest…
Because of the way the Israelites revered stories and history, they would have known what had transpired around Jacob's well. When John wrote his Gospel, he was careful to mention it to conjure up the emotion and context around this site. And here, in this place of human fallibility and God's faithfulness, of worship to both God and idols, a place of enduring promise, Jesus sits waiting to have a drink.
A Samaritan woman arrived, and Jesus asked if she would draw him some water. Water from a well steeped in story and history that now had the saviour of the world seated upon it asking a Samaritan to give him something.
She said, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”
Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”
“But how are you going to get this ‘living water’? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?”
It's as if she was saying, “Are you better than all that has transpired at this well? Are you able to heal and restore and overcome and love and partake of what has happened here? And more so?”
Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”
All that had happened at this well throughout the centuries was at the mercy of man. But Jesus was talking about a new way, a new water, a form of life and sustenance that didn’t rely upon outward displays of religion, but internal redemption.
He went on to say to this Samaritan woman (whom the Jews saw as unclean and who, as a woman, had little to no social and legal rights within the community), “the time is coming — it has, in fact, come — when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter. It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself — Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.” John 4 (MSG).
Who you are, where you’ve come from, and what you’ve done are not deciding factors in your eligibility to stand before God and drink his living water – to worship him. This thought was revolutionary back then, and even today with all our constructs of worship and truth. A true worshiper is someone who accepts the generosity of God and drinks of his living water. Full stop.
Anyone… Anywhere.
Go to PART 2 “Spirit and Truth Worship”
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