II Kings 5:1-6:7
Dear RTB’ers,
So, Naaman… What a story! Many of you know that I often like to “put myself into the story”. So readers, who would you be? The Israeli servant girl? Naaman (or his wife)? Elisha? Gehazi? I’m sure that none of us chose Gehazi; mostly, I think we like to set aside any greedy impulses that we have buried, unfortunately, not too deeply in our hearts! And I’m sure very few of us would presume to be Elisha – too high a calling for most of us. And the servant girl… Yes, we would like to be able to proclaim our God whenever the occasions arise; she sets a good example. Taking on Naaman (or his wife)… No one wants to be a leper (or have to live with one!). Maybe I’ll just be a bystander…?
But I’ve left out one other character who intrigues me – the Aramean king. In his reign and his region he is all-powerful and he presumes that other kings in other regions are similar. So if a servant girl says that there is “magical” power in another land, then send enough gold and silver to buy the healing for his trusted army leader. Done. Off you go! Then Naaman returns – cleansed! Exactly what the king expected – or at least, what he paid for! But then he hears Naaman’s story of how he was healed. Now what? Naaman tells us in II Kings 5:18 that the king regularly goes to the temple to bow down to his god, Rimmon. Does the king sense that Naaman is hesitant to bow down to Rimmon, as he has in the past? I would hope that this all-powerful Aramean king would seriously consider this new god, the God of Israel, that Naaman’s story of this God’s healing power would affect him – as I hope it would affect the rest of us as we ponder it today.
Blessings!