WEEKLY REFLECTION by Pastor Lap Dinh on 2 Kings 5:11–12

Naaman is a great man. Commander of the Syrian army. Decorated. Wealthy. Leprous.

He arrives at Elisha's door with horses, chariots, ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothes — and a script in his head for how the prophet should heal him.

Elisha does not even come outside. He sends a messenger: "Go wash seven times in the Jordan." Naaman is furious. The Jordan? That muddy stream? Damascus has rivers ten times cleaner.

He turns away. He almost loses everything.

And then his servants — slaves, his social inferiors — speak the most pastoral sentence in the chapter: "My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it?"

Sometimes the gospel comes to us not from a prophet, but from a slave. Sometimes the kingdom is preserved by the people we are tempted to overlook.

Naaman dips. Seven times. His flesh becomes like that of a young boy.

In John 11, we see that Jesus stands at the tomb of Lazarus and says, "I am the resurrection and the life." There is no formula, no chariot, no silver. Just a Word. And the dead come out.

We want a Damascus solution — sophisticated, dramatic, on our terms. God offers a Jordan solution — humbling, simple, on His.

Dip. Trust. Be clean.