She Has An Expectation of the Messiah And Jesus Fills that Role

April 9, 2021               John 4: 24-26

  ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ ²⁵The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ ²⁶Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’ 

27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ ²⁸Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ ³⁰They left the city and were on their way to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ ³²But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ ³³So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ ³⁴Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.

            God is spirit.  God is the Holy Spirit.  Two related but distinct concepts.  The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, that which descended upon Jesus as His baptism.  This indwells us and integrates us as we seek to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

            Saying God is spirit however is something different.  Jesus is seeking to use the limits of human vocabulary to describe the divine.  There is a dichotomy in the New Testament of flesh vs. spirit.  The flesh is the created, the sinful, the fallen.  Spirit is not sinful, unfallen, of the creator.  That vocabulary can get a little soft to refer to the Creator, as in this case.  It is important to understand that Jesus is not simply labeling God.  He tells us God is spirit for a reason.

            This entire passage has been about the living waters, transitioning into how worship of God is going to transcend location, neither the Holy Mountain of Samaria nor the City of Jerusalem will be the center of such activity anymore.  God has already been labeled as true, now God is labeled as spirit.  For Jesus, in spirit and truth are how true worship take place.  So it not a place, it is not a ritual, it is not a thing.  True worship is something then connected to the divine.  “Spirit and truth” are language attempting to link us to the divine. 

            I have trouble putting myself in the shoes of the woman of Sychar in this instance in the following way.  I have trouble wrapping my head around how Jesus needed to transcend the opposition between Jew and Samaritan.  I grew up in the church stretched out to the ends of the earth.  Yes, we argue with one another, but God still unites us. 

            The woman knows that the Messiah is coming and that the Messiah “will proclaim all things” to them.  Jesus is here sharing all the things that she needs to know for the restoration of right worship with her God, and it is a restoration that will transcend her present life. 

            Notice that Jesus is not leading with forgiveness here.  He speaks of salvation, coming with true worship of God in spirit and truth.  Jesus spoke the truth of her past.  But is was not to condemn her for it, but to free her from it.  It is like he wants her to understand there is a ‘clean slate protocol’ going on here. 

            What the woman of Sychar does have is an expectation of the Messiah, of what He will be and what He will do.  Jesus steps into that role for her, claiming the mantle openly for himself.  I feel I should be putting my closed hands on either side of my head and slowly opening them while saying “Mind Blown”.  Because Jesus has just broken down the barriers to true worship of God.  He has broken down the barriers of personal sin, offering the water of everlasting life, and he has broken down the barriers of communal sin-overcoming that sin in her life that has her coming to well at noon to avoid the shaming; offering true worship of God in spirit and truth-overcoming that which separates Jew and Samaritan.

            And this is where the disciples walk back in.  More next time.

Peace, Pastor Peter