Have you ever seen the movie Gladiator?  It portrayed a very powerful character.  General Maximus Meridius.  The commander of the army.  A great man in skill, strength, and mind.  Highly regarded and feared by his peers and his foes. Even his king.  Victorious.  A valiant soldier.  A strong heart.  Proud.  And loyal to his country.  Can you picture him?

That was Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram.  He was a great man in the sight of his master.  Highly regarded by all around him, even the king himself.  He was feared and respected, because through him, the Lord had given victory after victory to his country.  He was a superstar.  A hero.  If they had magazines, he would have been on the front covers.  He had the respect of his entire nation. Loved by his wife.  His approval rating was 100%.  With Naaman commanding the army, the country of Aram felt invincible. No one can beat us.  We are a superpower.  We got Naaman and the army he commands.  They felt safe.  But their enemies didn’t.  Naaman was feared by his enemies.  A powerful, strong, skilled, soldier.  A brave and valiant man.  He feared nothing.   He was tough as nails.  A man’s man.

But he had leprosy.

Didn’t really expect that, did you?  In Hebrew, it’s one word.  Leprosy.  Like a placard on his office door.  Naaman:  Commander, General, Soldier, Tough Guy, Stud… Leper.  “Leprosy” covers a variety of skin diseases, that probably meant Naaman’s whole body was turning a disagreeable white colour and getting a scaly white texture.  It was greatly disfiguring him by eating away a portion of his nose or cheek or lips or by leaving unsightly scabs.  Naaman could even be losing digits.  So much for magazine covers.  Leprosy, considered very contagious, meant you had to be cast out of your community. 

And there was no cure.  One of the most striking things about leprosy in the ancient world was its hopelessness.  Try to imagine the hopelessness that big, tough Naaman felt because of his leprosy.  This man who must have been supremely confident, suddenly feeling insecure around his wife.  His peers.  His subordinates.  His king.  Can you hear Naaman’s wife?  “Why aren’t you going in to work today, honey?”  “I just can’t.  I just can’t face the men.  I feel so weak.  This is so humiliating.”  There was hopelessness where there was once optimism.

What are some difficulties that give you folks a feeling of hopelessness?  How about struggling with anxiety and depression?  You just don’t want to face the world.  How about the state of the economy today?  Everything just keeps getting worse.  You are struggling financially.  Your house isn’t selling and you can’t make the payments.  Your job hangs precariously by a thread.  Or how about relationship struggles?  You are just trying to make things go better, trying to make the other person understand, but it just seems hopeless.

Maybe you can identify with Naaman.  Now, there is something else we need to realize about Naaman.  He didn’t follow God.  He wasn’t one of God’s people.  He was from Syria, an enemy of Israel.  He led raids into Israel, and on these raids they would take plunder and captives.  Families and homes would be torn apart.  Bodies and hearts were wounded.  Money and possessions were stolen.  This stuff couldn’t be justified as just being “part of warfare.”  These are sins.  Naaman is a sinner, an enemy of God!  He wasn’t just a squeaky clean hero whose conscience always steered him straight.  Naaman had the ability to steal, hurt, kill, and enslave.  He could show no pity without the least regret.

So he’s kind of like you and me, huh?  We are pretty good at doing things to benefit ourselves without the slightest care for how it might hurt others.  And then justifying it with the attitude of “it’s just part of life” or “that’s what everyone’s doing anyway.”  When you think about it, you, me, and Naaman are all pretty Unlikely Candidates for receiving help from God!

But we have this God who is patient.  A God who wants to save us.  To save all men.  To even save Naaman, the commander of an army that pillaged and raped his own people!  And isn’t it strange and wonderful how God works to bring Naaman to repentance?  First, he strikes him with a disease that would be difficult to see anything good come from it.  Then He uses Naaman’s own sinful raiding and plundering to bring an instrument of salvation under his own roof, in the form of a young Israelite girl.  Captured, she becomes the servant of Naaman’s wife.  And instead of breathing hatred out at him, as she well could have, God’s love moved her to love a man who was unlovable.  She sees him suffering and wants to help.  So she tells Naaman about a prophet of the true God who could indeed help him.

Naaman went to his king to get permission to go and even a letter of request.  And then he packed up one morning, taking with him 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, ten new wardrobes, and the letter.  Not to mention a whole detachment of servants and soldiers and body guards accompanied him on horses and chariots. Let me ask you something.  Where do you think Naaman believed his healing would come from?  It would come from his money!  His wealth!  His prestige, power, and reputation!  It would come from his powerful connections and their influence.  It would come from himself.  He made sure he had enough to “pay the doctor bill.”

So he took his letter to the king of Israel.  Who had no clue.  And didn’t believe in God either, which bothered Elisha, the true prophet of God.  Send him to me, he insisted, so we can show this guy who the real God is.

And so Naaman packed up all his gear again, his men saddled their horses and hooked up their chariots, got into their Hummers with the big shiny spinning rims, and the whole powerful and gaudy caravan headed down to Elisha’s house.  Can you imagine all the firepower and bling and snorting horses stopped in front of Elisha’s humble abode?  Which was probably nothing more than a mud-hut dwelling at the end of row of dirty little hovels?  Naaman was probably thinking, “I brought way more gold or silver than I even needed for this guy.”  But Naaman’s pride was about to be swallowed whole.  He wasn’t even going to see “this guy.”  Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself in the Jordan, (a muddy little brook people did their laundry in), and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

Now, Elisha was willing to use his God-given powers as a prophet to heal Naaman.  So why do you think Elisha chose this particular method to heal the commander?  There must be some reason why Elisha required this military leader to dip seven times in the lowly Jordan river.  Do you not suppose he could see what was in Naaman’s heart?  Do you not think Naaman was too proud for his own good?  Naaman needed to be humbled.  Elisha needed to show Naaman that healing was not going to come from his wealth or connections.  It would come from God.

OK.  Great.  No problem.  Go dip in the Jordan, Naaman!  What are you waiting for?  Clear skin is on its way!  “But Naaman went away angry and said, ‘I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.  Are not the rivers of Damascus better than any of the waters of Israel?  Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?’  So he turned and went off in a rage.”

God offered Naaman a cure!  No strings attached.  A loving gift!  The command was clear and simple.  But for Naaman, it was too simple.  It humiliated him.  It angered him.  He was hoping for something regal, flashy, and dramatic.  Not something lowly and dirty.  He wanted to earn it with his money or his great feats of strength and skill.  Not by submitting to the humble directions of an old man.  And he almost cut off his own help with his pride and rage.

Is Naaman’s reaction surprising to you?  Do you think this story is unrealistic?  Or does it ring true to you?  Have you ever seen situations today in which folks would rather stay in a hopeless situation than accept God’s will?  I bet you have.  I bet you have even done it yourself.  You get yourself into a difficulty.  Or a bad pattern.  It creates problems for you.  Strife with your spouse.  Conflict with your co-workers.  Rebellion from your children.  Guilt and regret.  And the only way to get out of those problems is to humbly admit defeat.  Admit you can’t help yourself.  And surrender to God.  Let Him help you.  Say, “I can’t…He can…I’ll let Him.”

But what do we so often learn about ourselves in these situations?  We are just like Naaman!  We want to earn what we get.  We want to rely on ourselves.  We are too proud.  We aren’t willing to laugh at ourselves.  We take ourselves too seriously.  And we aren’t willing to humbly dip ourselves in the river when that is what God wants us to do.

But God puts good people around us.  Like He did with Naaman.  His savvy servants knew how to get through to him.  They stroked his ego a bit:  You could always do some great thing, we know that.  If the prophet asked you to walk, even crawl, the 160 km back to Damascus, you would have done it.  No problem.  If you had to climb a mountain, you could have done it blind-folded!  If he wanted riches, you had it covered.  So don’t worry, we won’t forget how great you are.  But listen, this is one thing you can’t do.  Why don’t you let Him do it?

And so he did.  And so he was healed.  In fact, he was even better than before.  Not because of anything he did.  But because He finally humbly submitted to God.  And because of the way it happened, what lesson do you think Naaman learned from this episode?  He learned that this healing came from God.  Not him.  He had to humbly admit that.  And He did: “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel!”

And what can you and I learn from this?  Our God has the power to help and to heal even when no human cure is available!  That is true with leprosy.  It is also true with sin.  There is no human cure for the “leprosy” of sin.  There is no way we can heal ourselves and be fit to enter the presence of God.  We try, don’t we?  Stop!  Admit with me, “I can’t…He can…I’ll let Him.”  There is a cure for sin!  Christmas, the cross, and the empty tomb!  Christ is God’s cure!

And you and me, my friends, need cleansing.  I think there is a neat significance with the fact that Naaman was told to wash in the Jordan River.  That river is also the first place people began being baptized into the family of Jesus Christ.  Where people began being washed clean of their sins.  And just like the miracle that cleansed Naaman, in Baptism, the power of God lies behind the commanded actions and will bring about the promised results!  Acts 22:16 says, “Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away.”

Friends, in Christ, we have the miracle that cleansed us from the leprosy of our sin.  There is no human cure for it.  Stop trying so hard to prove there is.  Humbly let God cure you.  Go wash yourself in the Jordan.  Wash yourself in the water of your baptism.  Remember always that just like Naaman, you and I are Unlikely Candidates for such a gift!  But our God is the kind of God who goes after Unlikely Candidates!   Amen.