NOTES for Joh 4:1-26
Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman is about the main thing. About the Kingdom. About that new life which He, the Savior of the world, brought into this world that He is saving. About the Source of truly living water. About true worship. About the breath of the Kingdom, which from now on itself marks the place of worship. In short, about that new spiritual life and life in general which is, properly speaking, the Kingdom. The Kingdom is life as such. Not some specific "spiritual" life in the sense in which spirituality is often understood today, reducing it to some special altered states of consciousness, but the most ordinary, everyday life acquiring a new quality.
For to worship in spirit and truth means not to follow some new "spiritual" truths which the Savior reveals to the world, but to commune with His heavenly Father and with Him Himself, abiding in the fullness of the life of the Kingdom. Here there is no new religion or new "spirituality," but a new quality of life, a quality of being.
A new existence, to speak in modern language. Not only human, but including in itself both the breath of the Kingdom and the life of Christ Himself. He speaks of living water for a reason. In Hebrew and Aramaic, water that flows constantly, as happens with springs and sources, was called living water. This water is constantly different, constantly new. Jesus too speaks of living water, but of course not physical water. He speaks of that life of the Kingdom whose fullness He bears in Himself.
Of the fullness in which He can give a share to everyone seeking and thirsting, if only the seeker and thirsting person trusts Him. And then the same source that is present in His heart will open in the heart of the one who has shared in the life of the Kingdom through Him. Not in such fullness, of course, as in Him, but in the fullness possible for an ordinary person. Then for such a person the new life, the life of the Kingdom, will truly begin. As a life not only external to him, but also internal. And therefore his own as well. Then all questions about places of worship will depart, having lost their meaning, because the Kingdom will accompany the person everywhere. And therefore one will be able to worship God anywhere. In spirit and truth.