Re-Orienting Worship

"Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.'" - John 4:21-23

I don't know if we can truly appreciate how revolutionary this statement was/is from the lips of Jesus. Rather than worshiping at a temple, which both Jews and Samaritans did (they each had their own temple), they would now worship in Christ as the temple. No building or form is emphasized in the New Testament church, only that the Lord Jesus Christ must be the center of our worship. They no longer needed priests, a holy of holies (the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom, Hallelujah!), no more sacrifices were necessary. It is no "stretch" to point out that Christ proclaimed Himself as "the way, the TRUTH, and the life."
D.A. Carson says,
To worship God "in spirit and in truth" is first and foremost a way of
saying that we must worship God by means of Christ. In him the reality
has dawned and the shadows are being swept away (cf. Hebrews 8:13).
Christian worship is new covenant worship; it is gospel-inspired
worship; it is Christ-centered worship; it is cross-focused worship.
("Worship Under the Word," in "Worship By the Book, ed. D.A.
Carson - Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002)

We may need a re-orienting of our worship today just as badly as did the early church! We so often believe that real worship takes place when we come to a
certain building or hear certain music there or are led by a certain staff member or
praise team. Though all those things may be good for corporate worship, they should never become the focus of our worship. The sole focus of our worship must be Jesus Christ alone as "the temple". He is our temple and He is in us. Only Christ Himself, as He is exalted to the highest place, will draw all men to Himself. We dare not allow people to be drawn to us as lead worshipers. We must continually point them to the only One who can call them into true worship.