A Winter Dip in a Cold River

Delivered February 12, 2012

2 Kings 5:1-15

A couple of weeks ago a teenager came to my door asking for donations for the 2012 High School Plunge. This is an event where high school kids (and faculty if they want) take a dip in the ocean at Hampton Beach on February 4 to raise money for Special Olympics. I gave him some money to do it, thinking, “Better him than me!” Today I will tell the OT story of a man who took a cold dip in the Jordan River. Going into Jordan is not unusual in the Bible. Most of the baptisms we see in the NT are in the Jordan. John the Baptist baptized in the Jordan, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, and his disciples baptized people in the Jordan. I baptized my daughter Sarah in the Jordan in 1991 when she was ten years old! It was a memorable event. In fact she just ran across the t-shirt that she bought at traditional baptismal site twenty years ago that says “I was baptized in the Jordan River” in about a dozen different languages.

But the story I am telling today is not a baptism, and the man going into the water is not a convert. This happened in OT times 800 years before Jesus.  The man who took a dip in the Jordan was a Syrian General named Naaman. As we explore this story we are going to look not only at him, but also some other characters. As we look at the tale from the perspective of the different characters, we will see that it teaches us some truths about how God works in the world.

I. The first truth is that God is Sovereign over nations –including thier kings and generals. This dip in the Jordan was arranged by the kings of two different nations: Israel and Syria. This story does not even give us their names because they aren’t important. They are simply referred to in our passage as the king of Israel and the king of Syria. At this time the two nations were not at war, but they were not friends either. It was a time of uneasy peace and border skirmishes. Syria definitely had the upper hand at this time. In the story the king of Syria asks the king of Israel to do him a favor. He had a favorite general who had leprosy, and he had heard that there was a prophet in Israel who was known as a healer. So the king of Syria sent a letter to the king of Israel quoted in verse 6: “Now be advised, when this letter comes to you, that I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal him of his leprosy.” With the letter the Syrian king sent money and gifts to sweeten the deal.

The king of Israel’s reaction to getting the letter is in verse 7 “And it happened, when the king of Israel read the letter, that he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and make alive, that this man sends a man to me to heal him of his leprosy? Therefore please consider, and see how he seeks a quarrel with me.” It turns out that the prophet Elisha heard about the letter and agreed to heal the man. But the point I want to make is that it was all part of God’s a plan to heal this Syrian general, and he uses these two kings to accomplish his will. The theme that runs throughout this story is the Sovereignty of God over all nations and peoples, and kings and generals. This story is all about God healing a Syrian general. Not a Jewish general, but a Syrian general, at a time when Syria and Israel were at odds.

It is an important theme to hear today. God still is in control of nations and kings. Daniel 2:21 says that God “deposes kings and raises up others.” Syria and the king of Syria are still in the news these days. It is amazing that Syria has survived since biblical times. And it is still at odds with Israel. Other nations mentioned in the Bible are also still in the news today – Lebanon, Egypt, Greece. God is still in control of events in the nations. When we read the newspapers and watch the evening news, let us remember that the news is not just about the works of humans; God is in control. The very first verses in our story says, “Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria.” Do you hear that? The Lord God of Israel had given victory to Syria. The God of the Bible isn’t a nationalistic God who only gives victory to Israel. That is the way some would like to portray God, but that is not the God of the Bible. God is the God of all the nations. He might have a special plan for Israel – as his chosen people, especially to bring the Messiah through them – but he is the Ruler of all nations and all history. God is not just a spectator to the events of world history today.

He even cares about American presidential primaries and general elections. I am not so foolish to think that the United States is God’s chosen nation, or that God sides with either Republicans or Democrats. But that does not mean that God doesn’t care who is president of the United States. God still guides history. Proverbs 16:9 says, “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.” Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.” God works out history according to his purpose.

II. The second lesson of this story is that God uses ordinary people. Verses 2-5 “² And the Syrians had gone out on raids, and had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel. She waited on Naaman’s wife. ³ Then she said to her mistress, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! For he would heal him of his leprosy.” ⁴ And Naaman went in and told his master, saying, “Thus and thus said the girl who is from the land of Israel.” ⁵ Then the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” It was a servant girl who got this whole process going.

Think about this girl for a moment. She was a Jewish girl captured in a raid that the Syrian army made into Israel, and now she was a slave in a foreign country. Yet she is concerned about the general. She could have been angry, resentful and vengeful and not want to help the Syrian general who was responsible for her captivity. But she wasn’t! God worked in this girl’s heart to show compassion even to Israel’s enemy. She could see that God was at work even in her circumstances. Because of that, God could use her to accomplish his purpose of healing Naaman.

God is at work in our lives no matter what our circumstances. God brings good out of evil. In another OT story in Genesis Joseph is betrayed and sold into slavery by his brothers. Yet in the end when Joseph is finally reunited with his father and brothers he says, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good." (Gen. 50:20) This is the way we need to view our lives. Too many people go too quickly to the “Woe is me” option. “Why is this happening to me? What have I done to deserve this?” Too many people jump to the conclusion that something is wrong with the universe when our lives do not work out according to our plans. We think maybe God does not care about us or has abandoned us, or worst of all that our circumstances mean that there is no God.

 When bad things happen, it does not mean any of that. It means that God is using bad circumstances for a good purpose. One of my favorite Bible verses is Romans 8:28 which says that “All things work together for good for those who love God, who are the called according to his purpose.” Not only does God use all things, but he also uses all people. We can either cooperate with him or not, but his will is going to be done one way or another. Even if we fight against God, his purpose will be accomplished. The betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot is the prime example. God did not lead Judas to betray Jesus, but God used his evil deed to accomplish the greatest good of all history. God uses all types of people; God uses kings and prophets and servant girls. God uses ordinary people for extraordinary things.

III. Third, God humbles the proud and mighty. Now we get to the central figure of the story, the Syrian general Naaman. Naaman is described as “a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master” and “also a mighty man of valor, but a leper.” His king has arranged for him to go to Israel in order to be healed by the prophet Elisha. Verses 9-10 say, “⁹ Then Naaman went with his horses and chariot, and he stood at the door of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰ And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.” And verse 11 says, “¹¹ But Naaman became furious…”  He is furious for a number of reasons. One is that Naaman comes personally to Elisha’s house and Elisha does not even bother to come to the door to greet this great general. He sends a servant to answer the door and give the general a message. This general is not accustomed to being treated that way!  Furthermore, Naaman was expecting some dramatic healing ceremony, something in keeping with his social status. Verse 11 “¹¹ But Naaman became furious, and went away and said, “Indeed, I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy.’” But Elisha just tells him to go bathe in the Jordan.

Namaan says in verse 12 “Are not the Abanah^[a] and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.” Here is a man who is a true nationalist, as we would expect a general to be. He thinks his nation is the greatest on earth. Even his rivers are better than any river in Israel. And the truth is the rivers in Syria might be greater. I remember the first time I saw the Jordan river in 1983. I had studied the Bible about the mighty Jordan River and sung hymns that glorify it. For example the hymn “I walked today where Jesus walked says, “I saw the mighty Jordan roll, As in the days of yore.” Well I walked where Jesus walked and I will tell you that the Jordan isn’t so mighty. It is not very wide or very deep or very impressive. In fact it was a disappointment. I have lived a lot of my life near the Ohio River. The Jordan can not compare to the Ohio and certainly not rivers like the Mississippi. So I am not at all surprised at the attitude of the Syrian general for he certainly had seen the Jordan River also.

But the point is that this great general was being humbled, and he did not like it at all. The same with us. Life has a way of humbling us. If you haven’t been humbled by life yet, just wait; you will be. Setbacks in one’s career and job humble you. Health problems can humble you. If you have ever been in the hospital then you know that those hospital gowns are designed to humble you! When health problems are serious enough that you are in a position of not being able to do things for yourself, that humbles you. Nursing homes are humbling experiences for patients. Unemployment humbles you. Serious financial problems humble you. Mental health issues humble you. I can go on and on, but you get the point. If you live long enough, life will humble you. It feels like a bad thing when it is happening, but if it does its job then the end product of humility is a good thing. As the apostle James says, “Humble yourself before the Lord and he will lift you up.” The apostle Peter says, “⁶ Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, ⁷ casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”

This mighty Syrian general had not even been humbled by the dreaded disease of leprosy, and he wasn’t going to let a Hebrew prophet do it. He was not going to be treated like this - to be told by a servant to wash in the Jordan. But his own servants intervened. Verse 13 says “¹³ And his servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” And the next verse says, ¹⁴ So he went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. When we humble ourselves before the Lord, then the Lord will lift us up.

IV. Fourth, God is at work in a special way in Israel. This last point focuses on the prophet Elisha, who strangely hardly appears very little in the story, even though he was the healer. At the beginning of the story Elisha is the one who convinces the king of Israel to let the Syrian general come, saying in verse 8 “Please let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.” Naaman confesses qt the end of our passage: “There is no God in all the earth except in Israel.” That is what this story is all about. It is about the nations knowing that there is a prophet in Israel and that the God is Israel is God. My first point in this message what that God is sovereign over all nations and peoples. And that is true, but as I also said, Israel has a special role to play in God’s sovereign plan for the nations. Naaman learned that. His homeland of Syria might have more impressive looking rivers, but there was no prophet of the Lord there. If there was, then he would not have had to make the trip to Israel to he healed.

In the Gospel of John Jesus has a conversation with a Samaritan woman at a well. She perceives by what he says that he is a prophet. “¹⁹ The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.”  Part of Naaman’s need to swallow his pride is to admit that salvation is of the Jews. From our perspective God worked through Israel in a supreme fashion in Jesus Christ. God became man not in a Syrian or an Egyptian or an Indian or an Englishman or an American, but in a Jew named Jesus. God became man one time in history to accomplish salvation for all people. Human religious pride wishes it were otherwise, wishes there were many ways, and many paths and many saviors. Just like Naaman wished he could have found a Syrian prophet of a Syrian God to heal him in a Syrian river, but he couldn’t. He learned that there is a prophet in Israel and that there is a God in Israel. And we have learned that there is a Savior in Israel – Jesus Christ.