How, would you say, one should worship, in wind and in truth? How is this accomplished?
In terms of worship, I would advise you to read it the same way you've always read it (although I don't consider the passage particularly lucid). In my opinion, the gospels frequently anticipate Pentecost because it was the greatest revival - the greatest outpouring of the divine Wind - in church history, with the possible exception of the Exodus.
"Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent
wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting....All of them were filled with the Holy [
Wind]" (Acts 2).
I am fairly confident that the passage has Pentecost in mind. However, I subscribe to Covenant Theology, which holds that all believers - both OT and NT saints - have always had some measure of the Holy Wind. Thus in some sense Pentecost has already come. Hence:
"Yet a time is coming
and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Wind and in truth" (Jn 4).
A second reason for the existence of the passage is that the NT writers often sought to make more explicit those things left somewhat implicit in the OT, for example the Trinity. Thus the passage serves as a revelation that receiving the divine Wind of the OT is the key to proper worship - we don't need an ark, nor a tent, nor a temple, and certainly not a
particular mountain:
19“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.
20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in [Wind] and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
24God is [Wind], and his worshipers must worship in [Wind] and in truth.”
I find it very frustrating to hear about lands declared holy by Muslims - to the extent that they are willing to fight and kill to control a territory, merely because it is supposedly holy. In the biblical view, a land (whether a mountain, or a temple, or an arc, or a human body) is holy insofar as the divine Presence has currently filled it for the sake of influencing it. In that sense the Shekinah Glory abandoned the Mosaic accouterments many centuries ago. There is no holy land anymore.
When large numbers of people are gathered in one building to worship, there is probably a descent of the divine Wind upon even the building itself (not just the people), making it somewhat holy. But I don't consider this theological detail worth arguing about.
To summarize - in terms of worship, I encourage you to read the passage the same way you've always read it. It's telling you that you can properly worship only to the extent that you've personally received an outpouring of the Third Person. (I assume you were already reading it that way).
