Posted On: February 13th, 2006 at 1:53 am
The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany Trinity Lutheran Church 12 February 2006 Murdock, NE
+ Jesu Juva +
2 Kings 5:1-14(15)
Naaman. Stud soldier. Highly respected citizen. Mr. Syria. Could run for prime minister and win hands down. Most eligible bachelor in the Middle East if he wasn’t married. The Lord uses this unbelieving soldier for Syria’s benefit. Life’s good! He’s built one heck of a life for himself. He’s in control. The master of his life. He’s made sure that he’ll never have to . . . DIE!
And then tragedy strikes. No. Not an arrow to the heart. Not a spear to the head. A disease. He’s contracted leprosy. Terminal, fatal, incurable leprosy. He’s a dead man walking. A slow miserable death sentence. Cruel and unusual. His flesh will begin to rot off. One month he’ll have fingers. The next month they’ll have disintegrated. One month he’s got lips. The next month they’ll be gone. It won’t take long. Naaman will be dead sooner than later.
Lepers are dead-beat losers. No hope for them. They’re written off.
But not by the Lord. The Lord’s cup of tea is saving the dead! Raising the dead! Justifying the ungodly! And Naaman sure fits that description.
The Lord comes to Naaman’s rescue. Through the tragedy of another. A grade school girl from Israel has been taken captive in the border battle. And where does she end up? In Naaman’s home. She’s now a slave for Naaman’s wife! The little girl’s a believer.
The Lord uses her as His mouth. She says to Naaman’s wife: “The Lord I believe in has a prophet in Israel. He could help your husband.” Behold, a missionary is Syria! A tiny Israelite grade school girl whose life’s been ruined by war.
Naaman will take the chance. Get his king’s permission to head south. To visit the king of Israel. Papers are in order. Gifts of gold, silver and expensive clothes. Horses and chariots. Mr. Syria and his entourage are quite impressive.
First stop: the king of Israel. But he’s not the prophet. He can’t provide the cure. And he fears an international incident. Must have been one heck of a media event. The breaking news probably went something like this: “Mr Syria at the king’s court. Seeking miraculous cure from leprosy! King of Israel tears his robes! Responds with dismay to Syria’s monarch! ‘Am I God? I can’t help this man!’”
It’s up to the Lord then. And He’s up to the task. The Lord comes to Naaman’s rescue again. The breaking news got Elisha’s attention. He’s the Lord’s prophet in Israel. The Lord’s mouth.
Better go to Elisha then. Naaman does. Right to Elisha’s house. Another media event. Mr. Syria and his military entourage have arrived. To the house of the Lord’s prophet. Let the healing begin!
But Elisha stays in his house. He sends a messenger to speak with Mr. Syria. And all dead man walking Naaman gets is a word. A word of command and a word of promise.
The command? Go to the Jordan River. Wash seven times in it. The promise? You will be cleansed. Leprosy gone.
Mr. Syria is furious. He wants the big religious show. Like the ones Americans watch on TV. Rock and roll band. Packed arena. Lights, camera, action. The preacher strutting around in his $5,000 Armani suit. Waving his arms, shouting, and revving up the crowd. All climaxing in the push on his forehead, the shout “Be healed!” and his collapsing into the arms of the ushers.
Nothing like that at all. Just a word. A command and a promise. “Go and wash seven times in the Jordan. You will be cleansed.”
Elisha’s a fraud. A quack. Mr. Syria is enraged. Outraged. Scandalized. “Go to the Jordan. Wash there. What a joke!”
Good thing some of his servants talked some sense. “What if Elisha told you to do some great thing? Would you have done it? Of course you would. So why not this little thing: wash and be cleansed?”
Naaman reconsiders. The Lord preached to Him through Elisha. The Lord has promised healing through the washing in the Jordan. Will he trust what the Lord says?
He does. He washes in the Jordan seven times. His flesh is restored. Clean. Like he’s been born again in the water of the Jordan. Indeed. Rescued and raised from the dead by the Word of God hooked with the water.
Mr. Syria returns to Elisha’s house. Listen to what he says: “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.” A believer. Brought to faith through the washing of water hooked with God’s command and promise Word. Rescued from another death: unbelief. The Lord’s given Naaman new life in the one true God. How is this new life spelled? It’s spelled F A I T H!
Sound familiar. It should? The Lord’s given you His Word too. Told you to be washed. Baptized. And there the Lord cleansed you from the sin that had leprosy-ed your body. Rescued you from eternal death because in your Baptism Jesus planted you into His Calvary death. The only death that answers for all sin and sin’s deadly consequences.
You too have been reborn. Born of water and the Spirit. At the font Jesus “saved [you] through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3). You are cleansed from all sin and its deadly consequences by the blood of Jesus which was the detergent in your Baptism.
Now you too know that there is no other God in all the world than the Triune God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In whose Name you’re baptized. Your cleansing is your Baptism. You are dead to sin. You are alive to God through Jesus. You are baptized.