Day 4: John Chapter 4 (part 1)

This story of the Samaritan woman at the well is a beautiful example of the inefficiency of human endeavors. "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again (v.11)." The most primal human endeavor, the one we thirst for again and again is the pursuit of certain knowledge. As I have said before it is the sin of the garden: the desire to know good from evil. Truth in a universal sense. What I want to distinguish is universal truth from eternal truth. Universal is static and constant eternal truth, the truth of God through Jesus, is living and creative. Living water is the source of eternal life, a life in the Kingdom of God. Living water is a well-spring in the being of a believer that flows up to the eternal, which is the present, bringing forth the kingdom into this reality. It has been said: "Theology is done every generation." This is because it is a human endeavor to understand God. Rather we must drink from the living water Jesus offers us so as to become a well spring of the kingdom effecting every moment with the creative and living presence of God. Why return to the well of knowledge about God when you can live with God in spirit and truth?

Here the conversation moves to the site of worship. "We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews (v.22)." To contemporize this could easily say we worship what we know for salvation is from the church. It is the knowledge imparted to us by the church that we worship. In this sense we are still returning to Jerusalem to worship. Every Sunday we meet to worship the God we know. The God we know through the beliefs and doctrines off the church yet what does Christ say? "The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (v.23)." I have spoken before and will say again "spirit and truth" are presently eternal and eternally present in the very essence of the believer. These are the two components of the living water Jesus spoke of earlier in his conversation with the woman. They flow not from the well of knowledge we must continually replenish but the well spring of living water offer through Christ alone. Living water, spirit and truth, is only one facet of the kingdom. Jesus, as his disciples return speaks also of the "food to eat that you do not yet know about(v.32)." Of this I will speak next time.