Jesus is so radical! Sometimes I wonder, would I have followed Jesus back then, would he have been too radical for me? I mean he broke the status quo! He didn't follow the rules and traditions of society. He was different and that didn't matter. What I see here in John is that Jesus never wished to cause a scene, evidenced by the fact that in verses 1-3 Jesus leaves Judea not to stir up trouble regarding baptisms between him and John the Baptist. However, when it came to a person, it did not matter what others thought or what society deemed appropriate.
As I was reading I stopped for a while at verses 23 and 24:
"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
What does that mean? What does it mean to worship in spirit? I feel like this is key to following and connecting with God. Yet, I don't know what it means, so I wonder what it is that I'm missing out on? I search for other verses, basically do a cross-reference from verse 23 and this is what I find:
"But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." Romans 7:6
"Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." 2 Corinthians 3:6
I see a distinction being made, the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. Jesus said to worship in spirit and in truth. I cannot do one with out the other, but what is the spirit of the law?
"...The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." - Mark 12:29-31
This is it; loving God with everything we've got and caring and loving others. This is the spirit of the law. Everything that God has ever shown us, or asked of us stems from love to him and others. If we follow the letter of the law out of duty and not out of love to God and to others what good is it? It kills and doesn't create life. The law teaches us how to love, it is a start to creating something in our hearts that becomes natural, that doesn't need laws to tell it how to love.
Jesus exemplified it right here in John 4. He showed his disciples and everyone else that any law that does not reach out to fellow humans is void. Here, Jesus talks to a Samaritan; unheard of! Society said Jews don't talk to Samaritans but Jesus doesn't care, love says reach out and talk to her, the Samaritan woman. Second, Jesus talks to a woman alone! Scandalous! Women were not to talk to men without another man present being their husband or father. In this culture Jesus could have faced dire consequences for this action. I mean look how the disciples reacted; they "marvelled that he talked with the woman." But they didn't want to say anything about, basically looked the other way. Jesus, didn't care, he cared about her heart. So what if he got a "bad name" for it.
So, what I come away with is it's about living and how I live. Am I living through the spirit of the law or the letter of the law? Am I inspiring life through my life or am I killing (2 Cor. 3:6)? I love the way The Message interprets verses 23-24:
"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."
No comments:
Post a Comment