Exhortation, Fourth Sunday of Lent

Jesus says the Father seeks worshipers who worship in Spirit and in truth. We know that “spiritual worship” doesn’t mean immaterial, non-bodily worship. It couldn’t: Even if we sit as quietly as Quakers, we need our bodies to fill the chair.

But what does it mean to worship in Spirit? To answer that, we need to recognize that Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit, and then we need to ask, What does the Spirit do?

Throughout Scripture, the Spirit works with the physical world to bring it to fulfillment. The Spirit hovers over the physical creation to mold it into a cosmos; the Spirit fills judges and kings to do what kings do – fight battles; the Spirit is the agent of the incarnation of the incarnation, and through the Spirit the Father raises the Son from the dead as the Last Adam, and He will raise our bodies too.

The Spirit does not make bodies invisible. The Spirit brings the body out of darkness into light. The Spirit restores us from our alienation and isolation, and knits us back together with the creation and with one another.

The Spirit’s work is to make matter become fully what it is. The Spirit makes matter matter.

Spiritual worship happens when the Spirit turns and trains our bodies to do what bodies are meant to do, which is to worship God. Paul applies this logic specifically to song. He exhorts us to be filled with the Spirit so that we can sing and make melody. When the Spirit inspires song, our bodies become what they were meant to be – instruments tuned to the praise of God.

That is truly Spiritual worship.