Beth & Owen were gone cub scout polar bear camping, Daryl in the choir leaving my mother-in-law and me to hold down the pew. The sermon was about spiritual wholeness.
Let me remind you about the story these verses tell. The cast of characters are the king of Aram, Naaman his general who had leprosy, Naaman's wife, Naaman's wife's Jewish servant girl, the king of Israel and the prophet Elisha.
The servant girl told her mistress that if Naaman would go to the prophet Elisha, he would be healed. The mistress told her husband and Naaman told the king.
The king did a funny thing. Instead of sending Naaman to see the prophet, he sent him to see the king of Israel with a letter and a lot of expensive gifts for the king. The letter told the king of Israel to heal Naaman. That just made the king angry.
Elisha heard about this and told the king to send Naaman to him so he would know there is a prophet in Israel.
Namaan showed up at Elisha's house with his horse and chariot. Elisha told Naaman to go immerse himself in the Jordan River and he would be healed. This time Naaman got angry. He thought that was an idiot plan and he stomped off.
Naaman's servant convinced him to try it. What did he have to lose? So Namaan did what Elisha told him to do and his skin became young and healthy.
Our preacher spoke for 20 minutes or so about spiritual wholeness. We need to delve into our "Jewish" roots, observe a Sabbath of rest devoted to God, disciplining ourselves to daily devotion and meaningful prayer. His message was good but I'm not sure how he got it from these verses.
I was struck with the fact that Naaman only had to do a very simple thing to be healed. He was insulted by that. He wanted to do something big and grand and noteworthy; but the only thing that would heal him was simply washing in the Jordan River.
Is our salvation, our spiritual healing, just as simple? Just one simple thing. No need to worry or work or wonder if what we are doing is enough. The one simple thing took care of it.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment