The Power to Heal

We as a nation are obsessed with the power to heal.  Just look at the reverence that we hold for doctors and the way that we reward them financially.  Look at the big business that is the health care industry: hospitals, insurance companies, clinics.  And we are a medicated society: prescription drugs, supplements, vitamins.  But why shouldn’t we be?  The power to heal is the power to survive, to thrive.  Other powers mean nothing if we succumb to disease or brokenness.

That is the situation that Naaman found himself in.  Naaman was a general in the Aramean army.  Like we talked about last week, the Israelites were always battling this army or that army, never fully at peace with those around them.  The Arameans were from present-day Syria, north of the Promised Land.  At this point, the Arameans were the bad-guys of the month, the ones that were oppressing and ruling over the Israelites.  Their general was named Naaman.

He was a powerful man in charge of a powerful army.  However, he suffered from leprosy.  Now this was a generic term used for any kind of skin disease.  It is unlikely that he actually suffered from modern day leprosy, or Hansen’s disease.  Instead, it was more likely that he suffered from psoriasis or another skin ailment.  Perhaps he had patches of reddish skin covered with silvery scales, but it is clear that he suffered from the cultural stigma that came with skin disease.  He was considered unclean.  Regardless of his political and military power, he was powerless to heal himself of this ailment

It is in his story that we see the intensity of the power to heal.  When he was unable to heal himself, it was a servant girl that pointed the way to healing.  Catch the significance here: this was a servant, even more a female servant, even more a young female servant, even more a young female foreign servant.  The weakest of the powerless.  This young girl had been taken captive by the Arameans from her home in Israel.  This powerless servant girl points the way to healing:

“I know someone that can help you.  There is a man in Israel who is known for great deeds.  He is the man that has healed the water of Jericho, bringing life back to their well and their land.  He is the man who miraculously filled jars and jars of oil for a poor widow to sell and thus survive.  He is the man that fed a hundred men from only twenty loaves.  This man, this prophet of God, can help you.”  In a twist of irony, it is the powerless who points the way to the power to heal.

So he asked permission of his king, who gave him a diplomatic letter of request for the king of Israel and Naaman was on his way to find healing.

When he got to the king of Israel, the king smelled a rat.  He had just received a military loss and here was his enemy’s general – the man who defeated his army – on his front steps.  He thought for sure it was a trap, a way for the Aramean king to say, “I heard you had the power to heal this man, so if you don’t, I can only assume it is a slap in the face and I must respond with force.”  So he tore his clothes and went into a period of grieving, scared to death that the enemy was on its way back.  Another example of a powerful man powerless to heal.

Until our hero stepped in.  Elisha.  The prophet of Yahweh.  The miracle worker.  The man who spoke the word of the Lord.  He heard of the king’s trouble and offered to help.  So Naaman and his entourage traveled to Elisha’s house to receive his healing.  Naaman had doubtless heard about such healings before.  There would be some ritual and Elisha would wave his hands over the effected area and pronounce some magical words and maybe do a dance or something…and he would be healed.

So imagine his surprise when Naaman sent his servant to the door and Elisha didn’t even show up.  He merely sent his own servant with simple instructions: go down to the waters of the Jordan and immerse yourself seven times.  Then you will be healed.

You can imagine Naaman’s response: “What?  A bath?  I came all the way down here for this healer to tell me to take a bath?  Why do I need to bathe in these waters when I can bathe in the waters of the Abana or the Pharpar?” [the Abana and the Pharpar were rivers that flowed to the North and the South of Damascus, the capital city of Aram].  This powerful general was offended nationally – that this piddling Israelite river would be any better than his own country’s fine rivers.  And he was offended personally – that someone as great as him would not deserve a regal ceremony of healing.

Again, though, when the powerful show their inability to heal, it is the powerless that point the way.  His servants look to him and reason with him: “What do you have to lose?  You would have done some big task, why not do this little one?”  So begrudgingly, he enters the waters of the Jordan and dips himself 7 times, and in the end, the text says, “comes out with his skin as clean as that of a young boy”.

The power to heal trumps all other powers.  In the end, the powerful military man is healed by a young girl, a renegade prophet, and his own servants.  And his healing brings him to the place where even he now resembles a young boy.  The great have been humbled.  The humble have been made great…all because of the power to heal.

Physical healing and spiritual healing

But Naaman’s healing did not end there.  Nor does our story…

Naaman was overjoyed by the fact that he was cured of his skin disease.  Much like the tenth leper that Jesus healed in Luke 17, the first thing that he did was return to the prophet to thank him.  When he returns, we see that the change that took place was more than simply physical…his healing was spiritual as well.  Upon recognizing the power that Elisha recognized, Naaman immediately confessed Yahweh as his Lord: “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel!”  He was humbled before Elisha and before the Lord.  We see in that moment that his healing was physical and spiritual.  Now we as 21^st Century Americans make a distinction, but that was not a distinction that the ancient Hebrews made.  They did not believe that there was any distinction between the body and the soul or the psyche.  We are a holistic being, not subdivided by body, soul, or psyche.  With his physical healing came a spiritual healing.  For them, healing was healing.

It takes time…

We know that physical healing takes time: medication, physical therapy, cancer treatments…none of them are a quick fix.  Even Naaman, who was healed relatively quickly, had to go through a process…traveling to see Elisha, seeking his remedy, even dipping himself 7 times.  As well, his spiritual conversion was only the beginning.

Like any new believer, his faith was simple and unsophisticated.  He wanted to worship his new-found Lord, but he had to go back to his country.  So – still not sure the rules of this new faith – he asked for two mule-loads of dirt to take back to his country.  He believed that the God of Israel must be worshipped in Israel, so he took back dirt to create a mini-Israel in order to offer burnt offerings to Yahweh.  We may smile at the simplicity, but it is something that the Israelites themselves struggled with.  Especially once in Exile, they asked, “how can we worship away from our home…from our temple.”  And how many of us have struggled with the same reality?  This is the way I am used to worshipping…with this preacher, with this music, with this community.  If I ever were to move, or go to college, or go on vacation, would I really be able to worship, to hear God’s voice?

For Naaman, those questions were a reality of the newness of his new conversion.  His faith was simple and so he asked Elisha: “what about this other worship that I do?  After all, I am a general in the Aramean army.  I can’t imagine how I can go without worshiping Rimmon, the god of our people.  People would notice.  Will you forgive this indiscretion that I know I must commit?”  And Elisha, as wise as he was powerful, did not reject his requests, nor did he affirm them.  He simply told Naaman, “Go in peace”.  He knew that Naaman had room to grow in his faith.  His gracious answer did not send him down the wrong path or turn him away from the right one.

It takes work…

At once, when his skin was made new like a young boy’s, his emotional narcissism and his sinful pride were washed away as well.  His physical healing and his spiritual healing took place simultaneously – at the moment of his submission.  A psychologist, therapist, even a medical doctor will all tell you the same thing.  For physical healing to begin, the patient must submit to the process of healing.  An alcoholic must admit they have a problem.   A heart attack victim must believe that they can change their body through diet, exercise, or medication.  A widow lost in grief must believe that there is something worth hoping for.  My uncle is a pastoral counselor and he tells the story to his clients of the Iditarod dog race.  He tells how the hardest step for those dogs to take is the first one.  Before they start, the sled becomes frozen into the ice and the snow.  So the dogs must work the hardest for that first step.  Even after that, it is hard going and difficult along the way, but no step is as difficult as the first.

Naaman found this out.  He could have turned back to Aram and left the process.  He could have sent his armies to destroy the house of Elisha and the whole country – “who has the audacity to tell me to take a bath!”  But he didn’t.  He listened to his servants and he submitted to the process.  He was the only one that could walk into those waters and immerse himself time after time.  How silly he must have felt!  Until that seventh time when he rose from the waters a new man.  His healing was holistic – body, soul, and spirit.

God’s power to heal

It takes God…

So it takes time and it takes work, but as many of you know, that is not the final answer.  How many family members, even some of you, have given time and work, but not felt healed?  Whenever we talk about healing, we must humble ourselves to admit that it is not just about us.  In the end, it is not our power to heal, but God’s.

Human philosophies and scientific medicine have tried to figure it out.  Holistic healing, body-soul-spirituality, even Oprah have talked about this connection between health and spirituality.  Newsweek recently published an article exploring this connection between physical and spiritual healing.  And the results are mostly positive for religious folks…

• Churchgoers are 25% more likely to live longer
• Religious practices like prayer and meditation help in healing
• And there is a physiology of forgiveness: those who are able to forgive are more likely to heal than those who cannot forgive another

But the bottom line is that this connection is not easy to understand.  The power to heal physically, emotionally, and spiritually is not fully human.  We participate, but in the end it is God’s power to heal.

If we knew what that connection was, I would have better answers for questions like, “Why did my grandmother die after I prayed for her cancer to go away?” and “How could God let an innocent little girl be so sick all the time?”  But I don’t. 

I have had the opportunity to work as a chaplain at hospitals and Hospice and more than once I gathered with patients who asked but could not answer questions like those I just mentioned.  But we gathered anyway, laid our hands on a sick body, or even one that had already passed, unsure what to do next, but sure that if any healing was going to happen in the individual or the family, God was to be the Healer.

So today, some of you probably come here seeking some sort of healing…physical, emotional, spiritual.  If so, may we together take those first steps down the riverbank, asking God to meet us there, and asking God to heal the brokenness in us, placing our trust and hope in his healing presence.