We Must Come Down

Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.
—2 Kings 5:13–14

Rabbinic tradition holds that Naaman was the anonymous soldier at the battle of Ramoth Gilead whose “random” shot mortally wounded Ahab, the king of Israel (1 Kings 22:34), and for that reason Syria’s victory was attributed to him (2 Kings 5:1). He rose through the ranks to become commander of the army.

Naaman had honor, celebrity, and power, but he was a leper—all lesions and stumps, discolored and deformed, corrupted, shocking in his ugliness, a gross, grisly caricature of what a man was intended to be. Leprosy is one of the most appalling diseases known to humankind. It is treatable today, but in Naaman’s day it was terminal. Odd, isn’t it, how a little bacillus can bring a big man down?

Of all earth’s diseases, leprosy is the only one singled out and linked with  sin. It was a “dirty” disease that rendered its victims “unclean,” a word that suggests the antithesis of holy.

It’s not that leprosy itself was sinful; the disease was rather a metaphor for sin—sin come to the surface. If one could see the fetid, disgusting sight of it, sin would look like an advanced case of leprosy. And, like sin, the end of leprosy is death: Lepers were “cut off from the land of the living” and required to wear clothing emblematic of perpetual mourning for the dead (Leviticus  13:45–46). So with sin: We are stone-cold dead in trespasses and sin; “myself, my sepulcher, a moving grave,” as John Milton described it.

God had a solution for Naaman’s living death. It began with the loving concern of a little girl. We don’t know her name. She was just a slave, taken captive from the land of Israel.

The story is necessarily concise; nothing is said about the terror of her abduction, the separation from her family, or the crushing grief of her parents. Nor is there any hint in her of that bitter rage against an adversary that goes by the name of holy zeal. She saw her servitude as an opportunity to serve God in some way. Her occasion came with the serious illness of her master.

Instead of thinking of his disease as justice, she sought help for him, the only help that anyone can give: She wanted to bring him to the living God, where he could find “help . . . in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy” (2 Kings 5:3). The rabbis call attention to the peculiar construction of the sentence and render it, “If only the supplications (prayers) of my master could be set before the prophet who is in Samaria.”  Naaman was a hard man, but underneath there was quiet desperation. He was dying, and there was nothing anyone could do.

Naaman’s wife reported the conversation to him, who in turn sought permission from the king to visit Samaria, the capital of Israel. He needed permission and letters of safe conduct, because Israel and Syria were not on friendly terms. The king sent him off with a military escort and a letter to Joram, king of Israel, that said in part, “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy” (5:6).

The intent of the letter was to get Naaman in touch with Elisha, as oriental kings were then in close contact with their prophets and priests. The king of Syria assumed that this was the case in Israel and that Joram would simply hand the case over to his prophet.

But Joram had no use for God and His prophet and assumed that everything depended on him. He read the letter, tore his robes, and wailed, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!” (5:7).

Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, took the girl’s words seriously. Joram didn’t. The king of Israel, who had the wisdom of the prophets at hand, knew more and believed less than his pagan counterpart.

Somehow Elisha got wind of the matter and sent word to Joram: “Have the man come to me and he will know there is a prophet in Israel” (5:8). So the great Naaman went with his entourage and summoned the prophet to appear.

Naaman thought the prophet would come out of his house and put on a show—prance and dance, wave his hands over him, shout abracadabra, or make some other hocus-pocus. After all, Naaman was an important man. (The verb translated “surely come” indicates that he thought that Elisha, whom he regarded as his social inferior, had an obligation to come out to meet him. Furthermore, “to me” is in an emphatic position in the sentence, suggesting “to someone as important as I!”)

But Elisha did not come out to greet Naaman. He simply announced God’s word: “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed” (5:10).

Here is double indignity: Elisha not only failed to put in an appearance but he further humiliated Naaman by insisting that he bathe in Israel’s miserable river. Naaman had crossed the Jordan—a gray-green, greasy, sluggish body of water that looked like liquid mud. Indeed, the rivers of Damascus that ran from the snowfields of Lebanon were much more inviting. In outraged pride he stalked away from the word of God—unchanged.

But Naaman’s servants intervened: “My father,” they implored, “if the prophet had told you to do some great thing [literally, if the prophet’s word had been a great word], would you not have done it?” (5:13).

So Naaman “went down and dipped himself in the Jordan . . . and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy” (5:14). The Hebrew text places “and he was clean” last.

A microscopic pathogen, a young girl, certain unknown attendants, and an unassuming prophet were the agents God used to bring about Naaman’s humiliation and his cure. His response was worship: “Now I know,” he said, “that there is no God in all the world except in Israel” (5:15).

The reason for the story in its original setting was to establish again the supremacy of Israel’s God over all the gods. But I see another meaning: Here in Naaman’s leprosy we see a picture of our sin and its cure.

We must “come down” to be healed. As long as we excuse our sin and cling to our rank and nobility, there is nothing God can do. But when we take our place as helpless and undone, then and only then are we in a place where God by His grace can cleanse us from all our iniquity.

We must fall at His feet. We must confess that we are “dust and ashes and full of sin.” Then we are closest to Him, and He is able to set us free from all defilement and make us clean.

Like the flesh “of a young boy.” Imagine that! Think of a mighty warrior with massive muscles rippling beneath the unblemished, unscarred flesh of a little child! This can be ours as well if we allow Jesus to pass His hands over our leprous lives. Though utterly ruined, we can return to the days of our youth—not merely forgiven, but cleansed as if none of our sins had ever occurred; not merely cleansed, but clad in newness of life and in the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ.

________

Taken from Seeing God, ©2006 by David Roper. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566 Grand Rapids, MI 49501. All rights reserved.