The Miracle that Almost Didn't Happen

The Miracle that Almost Didn’t Happen 2 Kings 5:1-14 Last time I talked about Elijah, I mentioned Elisha and how his distinction was that, one, he was a protégé and successor of Elijah; and, two, that he did more miracles than any other prophet in the Old Testament. His name means, “My God is salvation.” How many miracles was he credited with, you ask? He did 32, twice as many as Elijah’s 16, but that is a whole other story… For today, I want to share the story of one of those miracles: his healing of a very sick, yet very proud, man. Naaman was an Assyrian commander, mighty in battle, a fierce warrior, but his body was broken, not from fighting, but from a ghastly disease. At the height of his career he contracted leprosy, one of the worst possible diseases one could have. His body and his spirit were devastated. We don’t like it when things break. This is especially true when what breaks is virtually impossible to fix! “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it” is our familiar adage. We know that when something is broken, it can be difficult to get it fixed. Usually when something goes on the fritz, and we can’t fix it ourselves, we get help. If the car breaks down, we take it to a car dealer or our favorite local mechanic. A bicycle goes to a bicycle shop. If one of your appliances quit, you can call Dan Reed. Even if something more complex like a marriage or relationship goes off the rails, we can go to a therapist, counselor or pastor. Even if we find a skilled person who can deal with our problem, we might discover that it is too costly and not worth the time and effort. Sometimes we’re better off shelling out the cash to buy a new device … which will eventually fail as well, and the pattern continues. We know how it goes. Let’s move for a moment from objects to living human beings. Can humans be repaired? Another way of saying this is to ask whether humans can experience healing. Humans themselves have been answering this question since the time of Hippocrates who was born in 460 BC. The Egyptians were dabbling in medicine since the 13th century BC. The Gospel author Dr. Luke was himself a physician. Jesus referred to the medical arts when He said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Mark 2:17). Of course, Jesus was a famous healer Himself. We’ve come a long way since Jesus’ day, at least in the medical department, if not the performing of miracles. Clearly, we believe that the human body can be repaired, fixed and hopefully restored. And if the body is damaged beyond repair, perhaps an artificial body part — a hip, knee, arm or leg — will do. The human body has a strong repairability quality. But what about the soul, mind, relationships or marriage? 2 The case of the Assyrian military commander in today’s reading is an interesting one, because here’s a guy who gets a twofer: both his body and soul are healed! Let’s go over this by looking at four important facts. First, Naaman was sick. “He suffered from leprosy.” This affliction was feared and dreaded more than perhaps cancer is today. It was a diagnosis no one wanted to hear. You can imagine Naaman seeing his doctor, and praying to himself, “Don’t let it be leprosy. Don’t let it be leprosy.” His fears were justified. Leprosy is horrible. Suffice it to say, it eats away the body until literally the victim wastes away until death. The Bible says, “Though a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy.” This is the thing about the disease: it is no respecter of persons. He was a big man. A powerful man. A wealthy man. But he had leprosy and had to bear the social stigma that went with it. Enter a little, Hebrew, servant girl. She is one of the two heroes in this story. She was weak. She had virtually no status in the Assyrian culture. She was the spoils of war, a captive, a servant/slave, a youth, and a girl. But … she didn’t have leprosy. Naaman was rich and powerful, but had an incurable disease; he was sick, she was not. She was weak and powerless, but had her health. Secondly, this nameless servant-girl dared to make a suggestion. Her status as a nobody aside, she had the courage to speak up. She saw a need and filled it. She didn’t have a shred of malicious pleasure in her body. Instead, she lifted her voice to offer encouragement to her oppressor. “There is a fix for his condition,” she said to Mrs. Naaman. “If only my Lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” Mrs. Naaman had a chat with her husband, who conferred with the Assyrian king. Arrangements were made for a quick trip to their sworn enemy, Israel. For Elisha’s king, King Jehoshaphat of Judah, however, the trip was a political nightmare. Here is the godless, Assyrian general freshly arrived “at the entrance of Elisha’s house.” (This was in the early-mid 800’s BC. Assyria wouldn’t over-run Israel for another hundred years.) So far, then, we have a sick general, a healthy servant girl, the wife of the general encouraging him to see an enemy’s prophet, and the general arriving at the prophet’s door. So next move … fix-it jobs require faith. This is certainly true whether you’re taking the car to see a mechanic or your loved one to see a doctor. The object of your faith is the mechanic or the doctor. You have to trust them. You have to believe the surgeon operating on you or your spouse or child did not get through med school on a pass/fail basis. This business of seeking a cure for a disease is tricky. On the one hand, we are all headed for death. It is a destination none of us can avoid. But on the other hand, who can blame us for seeking a cure and thereby 3 extending our lives for as long as possible? In the end, however, death will claim us; and no amount of praying, fasting, pleading, crying or hoping will change this. This is where faith comes in. When the praying is done, we live by faith. Our lives are not our own. We believe our lives are in the hands of God, so whatever befalls us, it’s good. We’re good. To God be the glory. At some point, the body is not fixable. But, fortunately, for General Naaman, the news was positive. The Assyrian commander could expect a good outcome, except … he was proud and arrogant. So we have a sick general, a healthy servant girl, the wife of the general encouraging him to see an enemy’s prophet, and the general arriving at the prophet’s door. Then the bottom falls out. Pride enters into the story. Pride often gets in the way of repairs and healing. This is true in matters of the spirit as well as the body. How many arguments have you had with a spouse or coworker or friend or family member that escalated out of control because you just couldn’t let it go? You would rather be right and lose a friend than pick your battles and save a relationship. You’d rather be right than happy. Not a good choice. Naaman is at the house of Elisha, the great prophet in Israel; and immediately, things go south. Elisha doesn’t even appear! He doesn’t even come to the door, nor does he let the general in his house. Instead, barely acknowledging the general and the effort he has made to travel such a great distance to see him, he sends him a text message that reads: “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” This was totally unacceptable! The Bible says, “But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, ‘I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?’ He turned and went away in a rage.” Suddenly, Naaman feels unimportant, a nobody. It’s like he had to take a number at the clinic. He felt disrespected. He felt he was being treated as any other leper waiting for a word or touch from the prophet. Here’s the thing: Naaman, in his pride, had forgotten, like we do so often, that he was, in fact, no different than others in their hour of need. Now he was the beggar, the sinner, the leper, the human, the needy. In the sight of the prophet and of God, there was zero about Naaman that distinguished him from other lepers. Now he was forced to bow in humility, and in that humiliation, he realized a truth that is so hard to accept. Like all of us, he was in need of help. He could not go it alone. He’d have to accept Elisha’s help or go home a leper. He 4 could be humbled and healed, or proud and die a horrible death. He could go big and go home as a leper, or he could go small and go home, healed and whole. His call. Naaman’s problem was pride. Naaman had this all figured out. He wanted God to do things in his way. But God does things in God’s way. When God had other plans, he had a royal fit. “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!” Notice the telling words, for me. Don’t we sometimes secretly feel this way, too? Perhaps we know at some level that God has many sheep in His pasture, but at a deeper level, we kind of think or hope that we’re special. Are we not some of God’s favorites? God will surely “wave His hand,” or cause a miracle or cast some spell, so that my life or a loved one’s can be changed for the better. Surely, God will heal my disease, or patch the holes of my ruined and broken life. Well, the good news is that there “is a balm in Gilead.” Help is available, and often it comes from an unlikely source. In Naaman’s case, it came from unnamed servants (the other heroes of this story) who called an emergency intervention and had a “come to Jesus” meeting with their master, saying, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more should you want to do something, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” And so, the mighty Naaman, reduced to humbling himself before the God of Israel, enduring the snub of a prophet of the Most High, walked down to the muddy Jordan, removed his clothes and, in so doing, revealed his scabs and broken body to his servants, and then lowered himself into the water until he was seen no more. Then, he shot up out of the river, gasping for air, and took a second plunge and repeated this until the seven-fold baptism was complete. You know the rest of the story. When he emerged from the final rinse, he was whole and healed. His faith, along with some help from his friends, had made him whole. But that’s not the end to our story. Most of us know that sometimes things are beyond repair. The car is totaled. The laptop soaked with spilled coffee cannot be brought to life. The miracle doesn’t occur as prayed for. In Naaman’s story, we see a faint outline of the New Testament idea of the old nature vs. new nature. Here in our reading, in what looks like a rite of baptism, Naaman goes under the water, not once, but seven times, and emerges not a dead man walking, but as a new man. Now is a new, fresh, healed, different man. The “old man” is dead; the “new man” lives. 2 Corinthians 5:17, one of my favorite verses, says, “So if anyone be in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” 5 This is good news for those who feel that their relationship with God is broken or beyond repair. Rather than attempting a repair, one might get a whole new car, or even more richly, as the Bible puts it, a new nature, be a new creation, have a fresh start with an entirely new outlook and perspective on life. This new nature, Paul explains, is nothing short of the nature of Christ Himself. With that said, we must return to our world in which broken dreams, shattered relationships and unfulfilled expectations exist. Naaman’s story reminds us that in such a world we, too, can be repaired, mended and healed. As Naaman also reminds us, a little humility goes a long way. Better to be obedient without understanding than to be disobedient and trust in our own wisdom. Better to have the arms of love comfort a human back into wholeness! Better to have the balm of forgiveness heal a broken heart! Better to have the impartiality of restoration and restitution reset the human condition! Do you ever feel wounded, scarred, broken and falling apart? We, too, can be “repaired.” We may not have Elisha to turn to, but that’s what Jesus is all about. Repairs, renewal, even resurrection are guaranteed. As the Gospel song sings: He’s the healer of broken hearts, He’ll mend your shattered dreams. He’ll pick up all the threads of your broken life and weave them together again. To your soul, He’ll bring peace and joy. A friend in need He’ll be. The healer of broken hearts is Jesus of Galilee. Amen!