Where to Worship?
Does worship have to take place at a particular location?
In a previous post, we looked at how Jeremiah and Ezekiel wrestled with the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem. In this post, I'd like to consider the temple again, but from a different angle: by looking at the scene of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4.
Historical Background
After the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC, it was later rebuilt (see 2 Chron 36:23; Ezra 3). However, it would later be destroyed again, in AD 70 (and remains so to this day). It was between these two events, while the second temple was still around, that Jesus had the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well described in John 4:1-42.
There are so many angles from which to tackle this crucial passage in John. However, one aspect that stands out to me, especially in light of the pandemic and doing remote church, is when Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (v. 24). It is this statement by Jesus that I want to explore in this post.
Where will we worship God?
When Jesus says, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (v. 24), I think he means that with the advent of his incarnation and approaching crucifixion and resurrection, the earthly location where worship of God takes place is no longer important, because Jesus himself is God’s temple.
Several features in the text support this reading.
First, when Jesus speaks of worshipping “in spirit and truth” here, it is contrasted with the physical temples where Samaritans and Jews would worship: “the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem ...” (v. 21). By contrasting worship “in spirit and truth” with worship at these physical locations, Jesus is thus making a point about the location of worship.
Second, a few chapters earlier John notes that when Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (2:19), “he was speaking of the temple of his body” (2:21). In the broader context of the Gospel of John, it is thus clear that Jesus saw his body as God’s true temple.
The New Temple
When we consider the two observations above in light of the historical insight that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed before John wrote his Gospel in the AD 90's, I think this has profound theological implications for how we understand what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman about the location of worship.
In short, since the temple was destroyed in AD 70, that means it was no longer accessible as a place of worship for the original readers of John’s Gospel.
When the temple was destroyed, the earliest followers of Jesus, who were mostly Jews, were therefore probably wondering — just like Jeremiah and Ezekiel centuries earlier — where they were supposed to worship now that the temple was destroyed. It is in this context that John reminds them of Jesus’ remarks to the Samaritan woman years earlier.
Why don't the other Gospels include this story?
To me, it is telling that this story is not found in any of the other Gospels, which were written before the temple was destroyed, but only in John, which was written after the temple was destroyed. The stories we remember and choose to tell often reflect what is relevant to us and going on in our current lives.
And for me, this story is especially relevant once again in light of the last year of remote church services during the pandemic.
John is reminding his early audience — and us — that “worship is not to be identified with a particular location.”1 Instead, for John, “Jesus now takes over the Temple’s function as a place of mediation between God and human beings.”2 Thus, worship is now “focused on the person of Jesus” who is, himself, “the place where the presence of God dwells.”3
Is God still with us, even during our remote church services? The earliest Jesus followers had to expand their concept of worship in light of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. So, too, for us in light of the pandemic.
The church, Christ's body, is now the new temple (1 Cor 6:19) — wherever and however she gathers in his name, be it Zoom or otherwise.
Notes
[1] Holly J. Carey, “Traditio-Historical Criticism,” in Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation, ed. Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 119.
[2] Richard B. Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), 86.
[3] Ibid.
