Monday, March 24, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Rain!
I should write about water more often. Last night in Austin it rained cats and dogs. Margaret didn’t need to water her plants. The bucket she puts under our leaky gutter filled up with rain water. The car washes won’t have much to do today, unless the falling rain brings with it more yellow pollen and gray dust from distant fires.
Go and wash seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will heal, and you will be clean.
Elisha kept the soldier from Syria waiting. Naaman, a leader among men, wasn’t used to that, but he also wasn’t used to begging from someone he had never met to heal his leprosy. His king loved him, and the king gave him pots of gold to give Elisha upon the word of a servant girl from Israel. Elisha, following in the footsteps of Elijah, was famous for his mighty deeds and humble beginnings.
None of the characters in this drama cooperated with each other at first. The king of Israel was afraid of the King of Syria, and Naaman had no interest in listening to a former farmer who sounded so sure of himself.
Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? With this, he turned about in anger and left.
The only sane actors in this play were the servants. Isn’t that so often the way? The ones who had less to lose took risks the rich and famous desperately avoided.
If the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary, the servant said, would you not have done it?
Well, come to think of it, I guess so.
So Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times because Elisha told him to do it. And his flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
Naaman, completely healed, lifted his face and praised God.
Now I know there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel.
 Jesus said it is more difficult for a rich man to enter heaven than to pass through the eye of a needle. How long did Naaman worship the God who healed him? My guess is that he forgot too soon, perhaps as soon as his soldiers looked to him for leadership in a battle. After a few weeks he even took his smooth skin for granted.
On the other hand, every time he bathed he might have thought of those plunges into the Jordan.
Where shall I go and behold the face of God? As the deer longs for the running waters, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul is thirsty for you, the living God.
As the rain fell last night I stood outside and let it soak my skin. Wind tore at the trees behind our patio and thunder filled the air. The rolling sound made a rich drama accompanying the rain, falling from heavy clouds across the sky.
The air and water cleansed my mind and heart, exhausted after watching the Fighting Illini play poorly and lose a game they could have won. They played one game great and the next game ugly. Their NCAA tournament is over for this year. I needed to wash my own sores seven times and let the water cleanse me and make me whole.
For that, I am very thankful.
(2 Kings 5, Psalm 42, Psalm 130, Luke 4)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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