2 Kings 5:1-14: “YOU WILL BE CLEANSED.”
No one likes to be sick, but it happens, it’s a fact of life. When was the last time you were “knocked-off-your-feet” sick? It’s a bad feeling, isn’t it, when you just don’t feel right and you know it, and it’s getting worse, and soon, you can’t do anything you want to do. You can’t work, you can’t take care of the house, you can’t have a normal conversation, you don’t feel like eating or drinking or doing anything, because you are sick.
But what a relief it is when that sickness finally goes away. You never really appreciate being healthy until you’ve been sick. Finally, you can do the things you want to do again. You feel normal. You can work, take care of the house, talk with people. Finally, you’re healthy and you can do all the things you weren’t able to do before.
Today, the Bible describes to us a certain sickness, and that sickness is leprosy. Leprosy is not so much of a problem today, but back in the days of the Bible, it was quite a problem. Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about leprosy, and how it reminds us of another sickness, a bigger sickness that all of us have been afflicted with, and that is the sickness of sin. Today, we’re going to see how God cures us of this sickness, and how he treats us when we have a relapse. May God bless you this morning as he, the Great Physician speaks to you, and shows you how he cleanses your soul.
Today we meet Naaman in our Old Testament reading for today. Naaman was a very important man – commander of the army of Aram. He was powerful and important and successful in the sight of the king and of all the people of the land. But Naaman had a problem – he had leprosy.
Leprosy – the incurable disease of decay. Basically, what was happening to Naaman was that his body was rotting and falling apart from the inside out. Parts of his body had become numb, and had turned a sickly white. Parts of his body were in the process of fall off. Naaman was beginning to smell, which is what happens to people with leprosy, and no matter how many showers Naaman took, the smell wasn’t going away. He was looked upon as a walking dead man – even though he was alive, his body was decaying and dying around him, and there was nothing he could do about it. People were beginning to stay away from him because of the way he was.
For Naaman, perhaps the worst part of leprosy was that feeling of helplessness, as he watched himself fall apart, as he watched how other people would cross to the other side of the street and stay away from him. There was nothing he could do. Things were getting worse, and he could feel that sense of utter helplessness, and hopelessness. At times he felt numb – nothing but despair, and desperation. Naaman seemed to have everything together, but it was all falling apart, and deep down, I’m sure he was wrestling with all kinds of demons as he dealt with the disease of leprosy.
Doesn’t this remind you of the disease of sin? Like Naaman, you might be someone who has it all together on the outside. A decent job, a decent family, a few friends, money in the bank. On the outside, you seem to have it all together. But, like Naaman, you know that this isn’t the case. Naaman had leprosy, and you have sin. Spiritually, you are rotting and falling apart from the inside out. This is something you have been born with – a soul full of sin. Have you seen the symptoms in your life? Sometimes you can feel that sense of emptiness – the world so pointless – that is symptom of sin. You see all those the mistakes you keep making in your life – more symptoms of sin. All those moments of complete, utter selfishness, those moments when you give in to temptation. And then you feel that guilt.
You’ve tried to change. You’ve tried to fix yourself. But sin is incurable, and deep down, you know that’s true. Sin won’t leave you along, and you feel that sense of helplessness and hopelessness. At times, you feel despair and desperation. What am I to do with my sin? We all have it, and, just as leprosy results in a terrible death, so also sin, results in a terrible eternal death in hell. What am I to do with my sin?
Naaman was told about the prophet in Samaria who could help him. How desperate Naaman must have been, that he would go to a foreign country and seek the help of a foreign prophet! I’m sure this looked a lot like desperate people today, who fly across the world in order to visit a witchdoctor for some incurable disease.
Naaman goes, and it doesn’t take long form him to become angry, “filled with rage,” we are told. His pride was hurt. This foreign prophet doesn’t even come out to meet him. Instead, he sends a messenger who tells him to go and dip himself in the Jordan River seven times. What is this, Naaman thought? I am one of the most powerful, successful people in the world, and this foreign prophet doesn’t even bother to speak to me face to face. He wants me to make a fool out of myself, dipping myself in this dirty river seven times? This isn’t how it’s supposed to be! I’m better than this!”
Isn’t this how we are with God? We go to God with the most terrible disease in the world - sin. And what does God do? He doesn’t come out and speak to us face to face. Instead, he sends a messenger, maybe a lowly pastor, or a lowly Christian friend. And he tells us to do something that seems foolish – be baptized – allow water to be applied water to you, and you will be cleansed of your sin. “What is this?” we say. “Why doesn’t God talk to me directly? Is God really speaking to me through this foolish pastor? I am supposed to be baptized? Sounds foolish. This is not the way I think God should fix my problem of sin!”
But we have nowhere else to go. Either we do what God says, or we die of sin and go to hell forever. Naaman had nowhere else to go. Either he does what the prophet says, or he decays alive and dies a horrible death. Verse 14: “So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored, and became clean like that of a young boy.” Naaman’s decaying, dead skin became clean, like that of a young boy! Naaman was cleansed, completely cured! Secular writings speak of a commander in Aram who was cleansed of leprosy by a prophet in Israel. It was as though he had never been sick in the first place. The rest of the Bible tells us that he became a follower of God and returned to his homeland a new man.
This is what God does for you? Before baptism, your soul is dead and you are filled with nothing but sin. But then God cleanses you – through the waters of baptism, you become a new creation! The Holy Spirit enters your heart. No longer are you dead and filled with nothing but sin. Through baptism, you become a brand new person. Cleansed of your sin, you have a new lease on life. You’re a new man, a new woman, because God has touched your sin-sick soul with the waters of his grace and mercy.
But what if we have a relapse? Have you ever met someone who is sick all the time? Just when they’re getting better, they get sick again? Every time you ask them how they’re doing, there’s a new sickness to hear about? They just can’t seem to get 100% healthy.
And so it is with your soul. God has healed you, and has made you to be a new man, a new woman. But that old part of you just won’t seem to go away entirely. You’re sinful nature keeps coming back to haunt you. It keeps dragging you down – sometimes you fall back into a sin you thought you were done with. Sometimes you say things you thought you were done saying. You see, we are recovering sinners, recovering from our addiction to sinning. We have been healed in our baptism, but at times, we suffer relapses, and we fall back into our old ways.
But there is a treatment, my friends. And that treatment is the Word of God. Daily contact with the Word of God. Daily confession. Daily forgiveness from God. And all this comes from his Word. That is how you deal with that chronic problem of sin in your life. At the beginning of our service today, you confessed your sins to God. And then God, through his representative, told you that you were forgiven, for the sake of Jesus Christ. At that moment you were cleansed. You can do that on our own, in your own personal devotions with God. You can read his Word, confess your sins, and then thank God for his forgiveness, which comes through Jesus Christ. Martin Luther said that a Christian who does this every day is a Christian who is on the road to recovery from his problem with sin.
Jesus also cleanses you at the Lord’s Supper. There Christ speaks to you, and tells you that this is his body, given for you. This is his blood, shed for you. You have contact with the very body and blood of Christ, sacrificed on the cross to take away your sin. And when you have contact with these things, your soul is cleansed. Your sins are washed away, just as the leprosy of Naaman was washed away in the waters of the Jordan River.
That leper in our Gospel lesson for this morning went to Jesus to be cleansed of his leprosy. You also can go to the throne of Christ, every day, any hour of the day, and ask him to cleanse you of your sin, and he will. “I am willing,” Jesus says, “be clean.”
Let Christ cleanse your soul through the waters of baptism. Let him cleanse you through his Word. Let him cleanse you through the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Your sins are forgiven. May this be something that brings you joy. May this be what motivates you to serve Christ and worship him with your life. Go in peace, my friend. “The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.” Amen.
