This thirst, which Pushkin calls spiritual in The Prophet, is "natural" for Dante, because, from his point of view, it is inherent in all people. Everyone thirsts, but mai non si sazia nostro intellecto, that is, "our reason is never satisfied" (see Paradise, VI, 124 ff.), unless the Truth (il Vero) enlightens, outside of which there is no truth. In the Gospel, Jesus Himself appears at the fountain of living water, Who can give this water to anyone who comes here and seeks it.

From the story of the conversation with the Samaritan woman, it is known that Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down by the well. "It was about six o'clock." Probably, He was waiting for something, thirsting for something. Because in the Scriptures, living water is always associated with the thirst that a person or an animal feels in the wilderness. The psalm comes to mind: "As a deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for You, O God. My soul thirsts for the strong and living God" (Psalm 41:2-3). And what does Jesus crave when He sits by the well? This is very well expressed in a medieval Latin hymn: Quaerens me sedisti lassus, that is, "Tired, Thou hast sat down looking for me"... Jesus longs for a person who will answer His word, longs for our faith, longs for us to come out to meet Him. This is probably what we are talking about here. Jesus is looking for a man, He goes out like the good shepherd in search of the lost sheep and finds it.

The spring spoken of in the book of Numbers, to which the people of God sing a hymn, is called a "gift of God" in the Aramaic translation of the Pentateuch, which indicates that the very appearance of this source is understood as a gift from God. And Jesus says these very words to the Samaritan woman: "If you only knew the gift of God..." (John 4:10). Thus, the point here is that God not only reveals to us what thirst is, but also quenches it. A woman, hearing Jesus' words that everyone who drinks "this water will thirst again," and "whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never thirst" (John 4:14), turns to Him: "Give me this water." Then the conversation takes a new turn. Jesus says, "Call your husband." And she answers: "I have no husband." It turns out that this woman had five husbands, and Jesus knows it. And she exclaims: "Lord! I see that you are a prophet."

At the beginning of this dialogue, in verse 9, this woman, believing that she was a Jew, says: "How can you, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, to drink? for the Jews have no fellowship with the Samaritans." The Samaritans are the inhabitants of Samaria, the northern part of Palestine, the country through which one must pass when one goes from Judea to the north, to Galilee. Jesus passes through Samaria as he goes from Judea, from Jerusalem, to Galilee. The main population of this part of Palestine was made up of people who had lived here since the time of the Babylonian captivity. They were not taken into captivity, they remained here, they mixed with the pagans, and therefore their religion was more like the religion of ancient times, before the Babylonian captivity or the era of the First Temple, but with a strong admixture of pagan beliefs. From the point of view of orthodox Jews, the Samaritans are almost pagans, they have fallen away from the people of God, they misunderstand God, so it is undesirable to communicate with them, and so on.

But Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman — and this alone surprises her. However, if in verse 9 He is just a Jew for her, then in verse 12 He is, from her point of view, already Someone more than "our father Jacob". In verse 19 she thinks she's talking to a prophet, in verses 25 and 26 she begins to guess that she's the Messiah, or Christ, and then becomes convinced of it. Finally, at the end of the chapter, in verse 42, the woman declares that He is the "Savior of the world"... The truth becomes clear gradually. This is very important to understand, because it often happens that, on the contrary, it seems to us that we immediately accept Christ as God, but in fact we accept a certain scheme, a lifeless image, and not His living one. As a result, it turns out that we, as V.V. Rozanov said, "worship the dark face" without feeling His real presence in our lives. (Rozanov's Dark Face is a terrible, at times very cruel book about Orthodoxy. Its essence boils down to the fact that we, not feeling Christ, not hearing His voice, not knowing and not loving Him, worship the "dark face" as an old, sooty icon, in general, not even suspecting Who is depicted on it.) In the 4th chapter of the Gospel of John, a completely different path is depicted. Gradually, step by step, the woman enters the depths of the dialogue with Jesus and finally understands that the Messiah is in front of her.

This woman had five husbands and lives with a sixth. From the point of view of Eastern morality in general and Judaism in particular, it is not only impossible to talk to such a woman, but when you meet her on the street, you need to turn away and spit disgustedly. And He speaks to her, and, as if breaking down all barriers, rejecting all conventions, He stretches out His hand to a person who, from the point of view of morality and religion of that time (and not only of that time), died and should be rejected by society. Perhaps this is no less a challenge than when Jesus, at the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark (1:41), touches a leper with His hand, which seemed to His contemporaries to be an extremely dangerous and insane act.

To understand the depth of this story, one must take the position of a Jew of that time. Male debauchery, male debauchery was perceived as something almost natural, but the same in relation to a woman testified to such a depth of her fall that it was shameful not only to talk about it, but to think about it. And He is talking to her, and in private, the longest face-to-face dialogue in all of Scripture. It is safe to say that there is no more profound one-on-one dialogue in the entire Bible than this conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

It is one of the most stunning passages in the New Testament and all of Scripture. It turns out that the road to God is open to everyone. But, unfortunately, not everyone understands this even today. And today there are cases when a woman comes to a priest, and he drives her away, saying: "After what you have done, I have no right to confess you," although in the literature addressed to the clergy it is constantly emphasized that there is no such sin that would not be forgiven to the penitent. Repentance is possible in any case, and no matter what a person has done, God is always open to him. God can do anything, He can raise a person after the most terrible fall.

The Samaritan woman, thinking that she is a prophet, begins to talk to Him, not about herself, not about her marital status, not about the contempt of people that she undoubtedly feels. No, it speaks of faith. Addressing Jesus, the woman says that the Jews worship God in Jerusalem, and they, the Samaritans, worship on this mountain (meaning Mount Gerizim). And how and where should we worship God correctly? Jesus answers her very simply and clearly: "You do not know what you are bowing to." Later, the Apostle Paul would say the same thing, addressing the Athenians: "This is this, whom you worship without knowing it, I preach to you" (Acts 17:23). The religion of the Samaritans has moved so far away from Revelation that they no longer seem to know Whom they honor. They do not know the books of the prophets, they read only the Pentateuch in some of their own, Samaritan version, they no longer know, they do not feel Whom they revere. In other words, the point here is that those who profess other religions, not knowing but still honoring God, still worship Him, although they do not know Him.

The Samaritans worship God without knowing Him. "But we know what we worship," says Jesus, "for salvation is from the Jews." Through the Jews, God speaks through the mouth of the prophet. From among the Jews came Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Amos, and other prophets. But the time will come, and it has already come, says Jesus, when you will not worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. This is a very important, although at first glance paradoxical formulation. "The time will come" means that it has not yet come. And immediately - "and it has already come". It's already here. It's already here, it's a time that's just coming. An extremely important point for understanding the Gospel: Christianity is the religion of the future, but of the future that is already here, which has already come, which is already experienced by us. And we speak of this at every Divine Liturgy, thanking God for the fact that He has "granted thee the kingdom to come." "Thou hast granted" means that Thou hast already granted the future kingdom. The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, eternal life, is something from the realm of the future, but this future has already been granted to us. This is also indicated by the phrase: "For the hour is coming, and now is..." – "But the time will come, and it has already come."

And so the time is coming when "ye shall not worship the Father on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem." God here is not simply called God, Creator and Creator, no, here He is called the Father: "They will worship the Father in spirit and truth..." What truth is, we more or less imagine. Truth liberates if we know it: "And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32). The truth is revealed to us in Christ. The truth is He Himself, because to Pilate's question, "What is truth?" each of us would probably answer, "Here is the Truth, it stands before you in the person of Jesus." And He Himself says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). Today, in Russian, "truth" means "truth", but in the Slavic language, "truth" means "justice". The word "truth" translates the Greek word "justice" into the Slavic language, and it is not difficult to understand that truth and truth, truth and justice are different things. What we mean today by the word "truth" means what is not invented, what really is, namely "aletheia" or truth.

"To worship God in truth" means to conduct a dialogue with Him, to really feel His presence, not to invent Him, but to be in a real connection with Him, in a real relationship. And what does it mean to "worship in the spirit"? The word "spirit" appears on almost every page of the Bible. But we know that in one case it is translated into Russian as "spirit", and in others as "wind", that it is not something abstract, incomprehensible – it is something reminiscent of Breath or touch. When the prophet Elijah waits for God to appear to him, he says that there will be "a great and strong wind that rends the mountains and breaks the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord is not in the wind; after the wind there is an earthquake, but the Lord is not in the earthquake; after the earthquake there is fire, but the Lord is not on fire; after the fire a gentle wind blows (and there is the Lord)." —1 Kings 19:11-12. That is, God tells the prophet what will be revealed to him in the blowing of a gentle wind.

The blowing of a gentle wind is His quiet touch. God, the Holy Spirit touches us. This is an extremely important concept for Christianity, for our religious experience, for our faith – the Holy Spirit. This real touch, the touch of God, must be experienced, and we do experience it. God reveals Himself to us by His Holy Spirit in our real, personal, unique, living Christian experience. And perhaps this is what the Lord means when He speaks of worship in "spirit and truth."

Father Alexander Schmemann liked to repeat that there is no ritual in Christianity, that ritual is always something essentially meaningless, but sanctified by tradition. There is nothing of the kind in our faith. In the Church of Christ, everything is meaningful, meaningful and not ritualistic. Everything here is done, as Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh likes to repeat, anti-mechanically. Worship "in spirit and truth" is our real approach, our contact with God, our real encounter with Him, and not at all the filling of life with some rituals, perhaps beautiful, but meaningless, even if they are sanctified by traditions.