Healing Birthed from Humility (2 Kings 5:1-14)

A Homily for 7/6/2025

Have you ever stood at a place in life where, no matter how strong you were, no matter how successful or respected you’d become, you suddenly found yourself powerless? Maybe it was a diagnosis, a broken relationship, an addiction, or a burden of shame you just couldn’t shake. I have, and perhaps you have too.

In 2 Kings 5, we meet a man exactly like that. Naaman was a commander of armies, a national hero, a warrior who carried the hopes of a nation. People respected him, perhaps even feared him. But beneath the polished armor and commanding voice, Naaman was still human. He was afflicted by a terrible disease, a disease no amount of military victories could defeat.

Leprosy.

It was eating away at him, slowly and relentlessly, just as sin eats away at our souls. Naaman’s power could not buy healing, and his rank could not command a cure. In his desperation, God sent him a word, a word that sounded far too humble, too simple, even too foolish for a proud warrior to believe. Go and wash seven times in the Jordan river? Really?

There’s a lesson in this story that God wants to drive deep into our hearts today: if you and I would truly be healed, if we would be saved and made whole, then we must come to Him in humble surrender. We cannot dictate terms to God. We cannot purchase His blessing. We can only receive it by laying down our pride and obeying Him, even when His ways seem too simple to our sophisticated minds.

Today, I want us to look closely at Naaman’s story, because it is really the story of each of us. It shows how the healing we so deeply long for comes through humble surrender to the God who alone can make us whole.

Let’s step into this text together, and see what the Lord has to say to our hearts.

A Mighty Man with a Deep Need (vv. 1–2)

Naaman was, by every standard of his world, a man who had arrived. He was the commander of the army of the king of Syria, a hero of countless battles, highly esteemed even by his own king. Scripture tells us, “by him the Lord had given victory to Syria.” Imagine that: even a pagan commander was an instrument of the Lord’s hidden providence. Naaman was a man of valor, a leader, the best of the best, and yet he carried a terrible secret. “But he was a leper.” That one line brings all his greatness crashing down.

Leprosy was more than a skin disease; it was a slow, living death. It separated people, disfigured them, destroyed their sense of belonging and their identity. Beneath his shining armor, Naaman was literally falling apart. Here was a man with power and prestige, but absolutely no power to heal himself. What a vivid picture of the human condition: outwardly strong, inwardly wasting away. We are not so different. You and I might stand tall in the eyes of others and be respected, educated, accomplished, yet there is a sickness in us no amount of success can cure. It is the leprosy of sin.

Sin, like leprosy, eats away at us from the inside out. It corrupts our thoughts, our affections, our relationships, and leaves us alienated from God, from one another, even from ourselves. Just as Naaman could not buy a cure, we cannot buy forgiveness. We cannot earn restoration. There is no achievement, no title, no amount of religious ritual that will heal the disease of our souls.

I wonder if you, like me, have sometimes tried to cover up your deep need with medals and titles of your own; or maybe with a busy schedule, with your accomplishments, or with approval from others. We all want to appear “together,” but beneath the armor, there is weakness. We all have a place of brokenness.

Friend, hear this: God is not impressed by our medals. He sees through the armor. He sees the disease we are too ashamed to admit, and yet, He does not turn away. In Naaman’s story, God was already at work, even before Naaman knew where to look for help, arranging the path to healing. That is God’s grace. He meets us in our helplessness. He begins to pursue us long before we pursue Him.

So let me ask you today: where is the leprosy in your life? Where is that place you cannot fix, no matter how hard you try? That place is exactly where God wants to show you His grace if you will let Him. Before we can be healed, we must first confess our need. We must drop the armor and admit: I cannot heal myself. That is the first step toward true deliverance.

An Unexpected Messenger of Hope (vv. 2–4)

When we think of how God rescues, we often imagine grand interventions: angels in blazing glory, prophets calling down fire, or armies of heaven breaking through the skies. However, God delights in working through the small, the forgotten, and the weak whom the world barely notices.

Enter the unnamed Israelite servant girl. She had been torn from her homeland by war, carried away as a captive, and given the lowliest place in Naaman’s household as a servant to his wife. If you were to write a list of the world’s powerful influencers, this young girl would not appear. She had no title, no voice, no freedom. And yet, she held in her heart something Naaman’s gold and power could never buy: faith in the living God.

Look at the grace of God here. The same God who allowed Syria to defeat Israel is the God who plants this believing girl in Naaman’s house, so that she might bear witness to His power. In her suffering and weakness, God had positioned her to be a channel of hope. What a mystery that the Lord uses the wounded to bring healing to others.

This girl did not remain silent. Despite her captivity, she showed remarkable compassion for her master’s suffering. Instead of bitterness, she offered a word of mercy: “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would heal him of his leprosy.”

Friend, do you see what God is showing us? He often brings the message of hope through the most unexpected messengers. Through the overlooked. Through the seemingly insignificant. Perhaps through a child. Perhaps through a poor believer. Perhaps through a sermon that seems small or a friend’s simple testimony.

And there is a challenge here as well: are you listening for the voice of God even when it comes from places you might not respect? Naaman had to humble himself to listen to a servant girl. How many times has God tried to speak to us through people we consider beneath us, but our pride closed our ears?

If you belong to Jesus, you also carry a message of hope, even if you feel you are too small or too wounded to share it. Like that servant girl, you may think your story is nothing. Do not underestimate what God can do through your faithful witness. Your simple words about Christ may be the spark that changes a life.

So today, ask yourself: who in my life is pointing me toward the Lord, even if I’m tempted to ignore them? And also: to whom might God be sending me, even in my weakness, to point to His healing power?

Beloved, God uses unexpected messengers to lead the proud and the broken to Himself. Will you hear them? Will you be one?

A Proud Man’s Disappointment with God’s Way (vv. 5–12)

So Naaman, moved by the word of a servant girl, sets out on his journey, but notice how he travels. He goes with wagons loaded down with treasure, with official letters in hand, with the might of Syria’s reputation backing him up. He is still a man expecting to buy a cure, to command a blessing, to secure healing by means of his own resources. This is so often our way, isn’t it? We carry into our relationship with God our sense of entitlement, our pride, our conditions, believing our status must matter to Him.

When Naaman arrives at the door of Elisha, the moment is humiliating. The prophet does not even come out to greet him. Instead, he sends a messenger with these simple instructions: “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.”

No personal audience. No dramatic prayer. No ceremonial gestures. Just a word, carried by a servant, commanding an act of humble obedience.

Naaman explodes in rage. “Behold, I thought he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper!” His pride is offended. His expectations shattered. How could this so-called holy man treat him with such disregard? And why the Jordan River? That muddy, unimpressive stream was an insult to a Syrian general accustomed to finer things.

Friend, how many times has God’s way seemed too simple, too unimpressive, too lowly for our sophisticated minds? We want a God who respects our importance, who honors our status, who operates on our terms. We want the fireworks, the grand displays, the respectability, but God will not bow to our pride. He will not negotiate the terms of His grace.

Naaman had to learn that the God of Israel cannot be manipulated. He cannot be purchased. He cannot be bent to our conditions. He is sovereign, holy, and determined to save us His way, not ours. His path is humbling: simple faith and obedient trust.

There is a searching application here for you and me. When God calls us to forgiveness, to repentance, to faith, do we resist because it seems too ordinary? Too humiliating? Do we look for some more impressive answer than a crucified Savior on a Roman cross, calling us to repent and believe? The cross, Paul says, is foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews, yet it is the power of God unto salvation.

Like Naaman, we often stand before the muddy Jordan of God’s command and hesitate, demanding a cleaner river, a more dignified means of grace, but there is no other river, friend. There is no other name. God has appointed only one way of healing, one way of cleansing, one Savior, and that Savior calls us to humble ourselves, to surrender our pride, and obey.

Where today is your pride resisting God’s simple way? Where are you saying, “Behold, I thought…” instead of, “Lord, I trust”?

Healing can never come on our terms. It comes only through surrender to God’s.

The Turning Point (vv. 13–14)

Naaman stood on the brink of walking away. His pride burned in him like a fever; the thought of submitting to this humiliating command seemed unbearable. If it were not for the gentle, courageous words of his servants, he would have returned home unhealed, unchanged, and unreconciled.

“My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he says to you, ‘Wash and be clean’?”

What wisdom God granted to these servants! They reasoned with him in love. If he had asked something difficult, you would have done it. Why not do the simple thing God has asked? In those words, we see a mirror of our own hearts. We often would rather climb a mountain, fast for weeks, give up all our possessions, anything but simply bow, trust, and obey. Yet God’s grace cannot be bought by effort. It is received by humble submission.

So, finally, Naaman goes down to the Jordan. One time he dips, then again, then again, all the way to seven. Imagine how each time he came up, there might have been doubt, frustration, self-consciousness, but he kept going, he kept trusting, he kept obeying the word of the Lord. And on the seventh dip, he rose from the water with flesh restored like a little child: clean, whole, new.

Beloved, this is the gospel: God meets us in humble obedience. Healing flows when we surrender, not when we strive. There is power in simple, trusting faith. The power to heal, to restore, to save. The Jordan was not magic; the prophet was not the healer; God alone, responding to Naaman’s surrender, made him clean.

There is a challenge here for us today. God’s command may not always make sense to our reasoning. He may call us to forgive those who hurt us, to turn away from cherished sins, to give generously, to trust Him in hardship, to believe in Christ crucified for our salvation. The world will say, “That is foolish.” Your flesh will resist. But God’s word still stands: Wash, and be clean.

Naaman’s final victory did not come by his sword but by his surrender. He was made new not by conquering, but by obeying. And so it will be for you and me. If we will bow, if we will trust, if we will step into the water of God’s commands, however humble they seem, we will find the cleansing, healing power of the living God.

Where today is God calling you to obey? Where is He asking you to lay aside your pride and simply trust? There is no healing without that step. But there is a promise: if you will humble yourself and believe, God will meet you there, and you too can rise clean, whole, and renewed.

The Call to Surrender

Naaman’s story is not merely an ancient tale of a soldier’s healing. It is a mirror of your story and mine. We stand before God, strong in our own eyes yet stricken with a deeper disease no human power can cure. We come weighed down by sin, by shame, by brokenness that no amount of effort, wealth, or status can wash away. And then God calls us through the voice of His Word, through the gentle witness of others to do what seems humble, even foolish: to trust Him, to obey Him, to lay down our pride and believe.

In Christ, the call is clearer and more beautiful than ever: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” The world says that is too simple. Religion says there must be more to do. Pride says there must be something to earn, but God says, “Wash, and be clean.”

On a Roman cross, the Son of God took on all the leprosy of our sin and was made unclean for us, so that in Him we might become new. He did not come with pomp or ceremony, but in humility. He did not conquer with a sword but with sacrificial love, and He now offers us a healing so deep, so final, that no power of hell can ever steal it away.

Today, you may stand like Naaman, burdened by something you cannot fix. God is inviting you to humble surrender. Come to Jesus. Lay down your pride, your conditions, your bargaining, your fear. Trust Him. Believe Him. Step into the waters of His grace and be made clean.

The Jordan still flows, in a sense, its waters echo in the blood of Christ and the waters of baptism, the simple means God uses to point you to a far greater cleansing. There is no other name under heaven by which you must be saved. There is no other river to wash in but the fountain filled with Christ’s blood.

So I ask you as a fellow leper made clean: will you come? Will you bow? Will you obey? For the healing you long for is not found in your power, but in His mercy, freely given to all who will humble themselves and surrender.

Come, friend. Wash, and be clean.