Worship in the Spirit

By Phil Wood

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

                                                                                    John 4:23-24

Over the past many weeks, while we have been restricted from worshiping together, a truth we've always suspected has become more and more obvious: worship is not restricted to a building, and it's not restricted to Sunday mornings.

As I thought about this more deeply, I was drawn to the fourth chapter of John, where Jesus has stopped at an old well in Samaria. He sends his disciples into town for food and waits for the Samaritan woman to arrive. I say he "waits" for the woman because, even though John makes it sound like a chance encounter, I don't believe it really was. Just sayin'.

Anyway, sure enough, at high noon, here comes the woman to draw some water, and Jesus asks for a drink. The woman is taken aback because, in those times, Jews didn't normally ask Samaritans for anything. But she takes the bait.

"You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman", she replies. "How can you ask me for a drink?" And there follows this amazing conversation that not only reveals to her that Jesus is the Messiah, but describes the gift he has come to bring (living water that becomes a spring welling up to eternal life). And, while he's at it, he completely redefines what it means to worship!

First, Jesus removes worship from the confines of place. As it dawns on her that this Jew at the well may be at least a prophet, the woman tests his knowledge. "Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain," she queries, "but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

"Woman" Jesus replies, "believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem." Jesus is clearly saying that worship can happen anywhere. In other words, the church "left the building" a long time ago! We just had to be reminded of that by the coronavirus and the necessity of worshiping apart from one another in our homes.

It took this coronavirus paradigm shift to help me see that Jesus was looking directly into the eyes of the Samaritan woman, speaking to her directly as an individual person and saying as the Passion Translation puts it, "Believe me, dear woman, the time has come when you won't worship the Father on a mountain nor in Jerusalem, but in your heart."

And now, something else has become clearer to me, something that has confounded me ever since I first came across it. Jesus goes on to say, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." That's how it's stated in my older edition of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. And I've always wondered what does that mean, exactly?

But now notice the difference between this version and the updated NIV passage posted at the top of this devotional. They've gone and changed the passage! They added the word "the" and capitalized the word "Spirit." So it now says, "...worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."

Wait, what? The Holy Spirit has something to do with this? And the scholars and theologians who put the NIV together just recently figured this out?

Well, whatever happened, with this updated version and my newfound awareness of the Holy Spirit that has come about during these weeks of Easter leading up to Pentecost, and in the isolation of coronavirus, suddenly it all makes perfect sense. And it all came together in this paragraph from The Reservoir, a Spiritual Formation Devotional published by Renovare.

"Places and forms of worship can be helpful. But ultimately worship – ascribing worth and honor to God in whatever we do, say, or sing – is about the heart. The Holy Spirit, as our teacher wants to reveal to us God's goodness, beauty, truth – and most of all his love. We need only ask. And when God's love and beauty and truth are seen, it is only natural to respond in thankfulness and worship."

So, wherever you are, whatever time of day, whatever day of the week it is, when your heart leaps at beholding God's goodness, beauty, truth or love in a specific way, and you pause to say, "Thank you, Lord," or, "You are amazing, God," you are worshiping in the Spirit and in truth.

You probably knew all this. But it was a revelation to me. Thank you, Lord!