Walking With Christ

2 Kings 5 tells the story of Naaman. Naaman was a commander in the Syrian army. He was very good at what he did and had been blessed by the Lord to gain victory for Syria. Naaman was rich, powerful, well respected. The problem is that he was also a leper. On one raid, his army carried off a little girl from Israel. The girl was given to Naaman’s wife as a servant. The girl told her mistress about Elisha and how he could heal Naaman of leprosy. The girl told the mistress. The mistress told Naaman. Naaman told the Syrian king who ordered Naaman to take a lot of money and other stuff to pay for this healing along with a letter for the king of Israel.

When the king of Israel saw the letter he thought it was a joke and that Syria was picking a fight. Until Elisha spoke up and said to send Naaman to his house. Naaman arrived at the door to Elisha’s house and knocked. He was expecting Elisha to come out, say a prayer to his God, wave his hand, then cure the leprosy. That’s not what happened at all. Elisha never came to the door. He sent a servant with a message.

Naaman was fuming. He was insulted that he wasn’t greeted by Elisha and the servant delivered a message just saying to take a bath. Naaman that there were rivers closer to his home that had better water than anything local and he had bathed in them. Naaman truly felt insulted.

His servants asked him what it could hurt to humor the prophet by dunking himself seven times in the Jordan river.

On the seventh time of dunking himself, Naaman came up out of the water with skin like a baby. It was pure and healthy. He rushed back to Elisha and basically threw all of the payment at him saying that it wasn’t enough to pay for what had happened. Elisha refused every bit of the payment saying that this was a gift from God. Naaman then asked for two carts full of dirt from the area so that he could worship and pray on their soil wherever he went, that he would never offer a sacrifice to any other god but the one of Israel, and asked permanent pardon for fulfilling his duty to bow before the god of his master.

Naaman nearly let his anger and pride prevent his healing. He was angry that he hadn’t been greeted by Elisha because he was someone special who Elisha should have bowed down to. His pride was injured when Elisha didn’t show him deference because of who he was and his position. He almost let his title and self-righteousness win. He felt that there needed to be a certain degree of pomp and ceremony surrounding the healing process.

Elisha cut through all of that and simply said to go take a bath. Naaman had already been blessed but his spirit needed a bath.