“The Bible’s Children: Naaman’s servant girl”
II Kings 5:2-3
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
No matter who you are or how old you are, illness or injury can cripple any one of us at any time, even celebrities and singers of all kinds.
Take Irish author, poet, and painter, Christy Brown, for example. Because of his cerebral palsy, he couldn’t speak or hardly even move for years. Doctors just assumed he was intellectually disabled too. But his mother kept speaking to him, working with him, and trying to teach him, until one day when he was five years old, he snatched a piece of chalk from his sister with his left foot, then made a mark on a slate. Later, he wrote a book called, My Left Foot, what’s been called “the most important Irish novel since Ulysses.”
Or think of American professor and mathematician John Nash. In college, he studied chemical engineering, chemistry, and mathematics, and then was awarded a fellowship at Princeton. But that’s when he started showing signs of paranoia and schizophrenia, believing that a secret government organization was out to get him. Finally, after undergoing years of treatment and even shock therapy, he started to recover. His story is told in the movie A Beautiful Mind.
Beethoven was completely deaf for the last twenty-five years of his life, yet he still went on to compose some of the world’s greatest symphonies. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had polio, and so did golfer Jack Nicklaus and Olympic swimmer and gold medalist(!) Shelley Mann. Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill, and Woodrow Wilson were all dyslexic. And Sudha Chandran, one of the most accomplished dancers India has ever known, has an artificial right leg.
In spite of incredible setbacks and handicaps, they all went on to do some remarkable things.
The book of II Kings tells of a man who was just like that, a man named Naaman.
I’ll read the words of II Kings chapter 5: “Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper” (II Kings 5:1).
“Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria,” it said. “Commander in Chief,” “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” second only to the king himself. He was a man of power, position, and prestige. He was respected, feared, and adored. And since he held such a position of high honor, he lived among the upper crust and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the rich, the powerful, and the elite.
As one author wrote, he was “the kind of general who walked into a press conference chest first, who led with the stars on his shoulders and the medals on his uniform, a man cheered in the parade and saluted on the street, a man made bulletproof by his reputation, and by his 12-gauge ego.”
But for all of his power, pomp, and prestige, he had a problem. As the Bible said in verse 1: “He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.”
Now if you don’t mind, allow me to digress for just a moment, because it’s important. What’s a leper? Or better yet, what is leprosy?
It’s a disease that’s literally terrified humanity for centuries, and still threatens lives around the world today. In the words of webmd: “Outbreaks of leprosy have affected, and panicked, people on every continent. The oldest civilizations of China, Egypt, and India feared leprosy as an incurable, mutilating, and contagious disease.”
And for good reason, for just as soon as it infects a person, it spreads to their hands, their feet, their face, and their ears. Limbs twist and fingers curl. Tissues degenerate. The body deforms.
Leprosy was so serious, Moses even gave this command: “The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean’...He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp” (Leviticus 13:45-46).
For months, Naaman had been able to conceal it, but now he couldn’t hide it anymore. And though people treated him respectfully, they didn’t dare go near him, much less touch him.
Can you imagine his deep, deep despair when he spoke the four most painful words anyone could speak? “I am a leper.”
But there’s more to the story, so let’s read on. Verse 2: “Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, ‘Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.’ So Naaman went in and told his lord, ‘Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel.’ And the king of Syria said, ‘Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel’” (II Kings 5:2-5). “A little girl,” it said, “from the land of Israel” (II Kings 5:2).
Whether she was eight or twelve or somewhere inbetween, imagine how her eyes had filled with terror as that band of Syrian soldiers swooped into town on horses, shouting words she couldn’t understand and bringing destruction. And though her father and mother had prayed that God would protect them, a torch burned through the thatched roof of their home. And as she ran in fear for her life, not knowing what to do or where to go, a rough arm suddenly scooped her off her feet and onto a galloping horse, its rider’s grip as hard as iron, as she struggled with all her might to be free. What a prize she’d be for someone’s household!
In a matter of minutes, everything she had known and loved was gone--her father and mother, her brothers and sisters--never to be seen again. And ahead of her were all things foreign--land, gods, customs, people, and language.
And in the weeks and months that followed, as she poured out her heart to God, she sobbed herself to sleep every night crying why, oh why?
But that’s when, wonder of wonders, she was taken to the home of Naaman where, as the Bible says, “she worked in the service of Naaman’s wife” (II Kings 5:2).
Which must have been quite a big deal. I mean, since Naaman was commander-in-chief of the Syrian army, the king’s right-hand man, his home would have been gorgeous with beautiful stonework, a curving driveway, and marble floors. There were maids and butlers and dinner parties of all kinds. And she, young girl that she was, would be the servant, the personal assistant, of his wife.
And one day, when she couldn’t help but notice that her mistress was crying, the truth finally came out.
“What’s wrong,” she asked. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“If only you could, little girl,” she answered. “Leprosy is a terrible disease and, for my poor husband, there is no hope.”
“No hope?” she said.
Let’s stop there for just a moment.
If you could, I’d like you to put yourself into the shoes of that little girl. First, she was living as a captive in Syria, far from home. Her parents were gone, and most likely her brothers and sisters were gone too. And after losing everything she had loved and known, stolen as a spoil of war, reduced to a slave in her conqueror’s home, she had every right to be bitter and resentful.
Even more, if you think about it, Naaman and that servant girl are a study in contrasts. He was the captain; she was the captured. He was the master; she was the slave. He was rich; she was poor. He was a Gentile; she was a hated Jew. He was a somebody; she was a nobody. He was a man; and she was just a little girl.
But while he worshiped Rimmon, the god of Syria (II Kings 5:18), she worshiped Yahweh, the God of Israel.
So what would she say? What would she do? Would she choose hate and revenge or would she choose love, forgiveness, and compassion?
“No hope?” she said. “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy” (II Kings 5:3).
And at her word, the whole palace was stirred.
Then what? Off he went with his cavalcade of horses, chariots, camels, soldiers, servants, flag bearers, and personal attendants, not to mention ten talents of silver and six thousand shekels of gold, and made his way to the humble home of Elisha, prophet of God.
Now let me ask you, if you were the commander of the army of the king of Syria, second only to the king himself, and you had just traveled a great distance and gone to quite a lot of trouble to be healed, what would you expect? Would you expect Elisha to step out of his door, lift his hands in blessing, then speak miraculous words of healing?
Naaman most certainly did! But that’s not what happened at all!
Elisha didn’t even go to the door! Instead, he sent his messenger to say, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean” (II Kings 5:10).
And what did Naaman do? To put it mildly, he was not impressed. Instead, he said, “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?” (II Kings 5:12).
And in a rage, he stormed out the door and left.
Funny thing. If Elisha had asked for a million dollars, Naaman would have gladly given it to him. If he had told him to cut himself and offer his own blood on the altar, Naaman would have asked him where to cut. If he told him to crawl across a field of broken glass, he would have dropped to his hands and knees, and asked “How far?”
Sinners, it seems, want to feel as though they’ve delivered themselves. We want to “do” something, so we can feel like we, at least in part, have accomplished our own salvation.
But God’s grace doesn’t work that way. Either you receive what He offers as a gift, or it’s not a gift at all.
And when Naaman finally came to understand that, when he learned of the power and the grace of God, as the Bible says, “He went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God” (II Kings 5:14).
And sure enough, at the very moment he washed himself in the Jordan, all of a sudden the scabs were gone, the sores were gone, and the scars were gone. The disease had vanished! And his skin was as pure and smooth as the skin of a child.
He was a leper no more.
What does all this mean for us? I’ll leave you with just two things.
First, whether we realize it or not, there are many “Naaman’s” in our lives, people who are sick and suffering--not from leprosy, but from a disease that’s far worse. It’s sin--a sickness that leads to spiritual death and eternal separation from God.
And we have the answer! We have the cure! And it’s found in only one place--and that’s in Jesus Christ. He is the answer. He’s the cure for man’s greatest need.
And one more thing--while none of us could ever be Elisha, the prophet of God, each of us can be the servant girl. We can reach across barriers. We can show love instead of hate. We can show kindness and compassion. And we can lead them to Jesus Christ.
As one author wrote, “We can all be the nobody that somebody needs.”
As the apostle Paul once wrote to the Corinthians: “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ” (II Corinthians 5:18-20).
We thank You, dear Father, for the healing you once brought into the life of a man named Naaman. Help us to say, just as he once said, “There is no God in all the earth like You.” This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen