When I was studying physics at university, one phenomenon amazed me — superposition. The idea is that one and the same particle can be in two opposite states at once: to be here — and to be there, to exist — and not exist — in the very same instant. Erwin Schrödinger even came up with a famous thought experiment: a cat shut in a box with a radioactive element is, as long as the box stays closed, both alive and dead at the same time. “How can that be?” you ask. I agree — quantum physics is hard to grasp; there is a great deal in it that is far from obvious.
In life, we say, it doesn’t work that way — you can’t be doing well and doing badly at once. Life, after all, is simple. We almost always split the world into two opposite states. A person is either successful or he isn’t. Either blessed or cursed. Either everything is fine — or everything has collapsed. We find it hard to imagine blessing without a job, success without money and fame, unity without everyone thinking alike. We love to sort people onto two shelves: winners on one, losers on the other. And ourselves, of course, we are used to placing on the upper shelf. And when we suddenly land on the lower one, we ask: where is God, and why doesn’t He hear us?
But here is what is strange. The Bible describes the circumstances of a living person quite differently. Not two mutually exclusive states, not “either/or,” not black or white, but “both at once.” Just like in quantum physics. A person can be respected, accomplished, strong — and at the very same time carry within himself something that does not fit that beautiful picture at all. One short “but,” which can neither be explained away nor hidden. And the most unexpected thing: God does not separate these two states into different boxes. He allows them to live in one person at the same time.
Many of you know John Piper — one of the best-known preachers of our time, heard by millions. But his own son has publicly renounced his father’s faith and now mocks Christianity before millions of followers. There it is, the paradox of superposition: the father teaches the whole world — but cannot reach his own son. Success and a thorn — in one man, at the same time.
Or think of Charles Spurgeon. They called him “the prince of preachers”; thousands streamed to hear him. Yet all his life he carried a heavy depression: at the height of his fame he wrote that he lay in a darkness from which he could see no way out, and his inner struggle was compounded by gout and rheumatism. The light of the gospel in the pulpit — and a hard battle within, on one and the same day.
Jonathan Edwards was the greatest theologian of America’s Great Awakening in the eighteenth century. But his own church, which he had served for twenty years, voted him out: the congregation did not like how consistently he followed Scripture.
Many have seen the videos of Nick Vujicic, born in Melbourne without arms or legs. An astonishing pairing of the incompatible: a body from which almost everything was taken — and one of the most joyful testimonies about Christ the world has heard. Total helplessness — and fullness of joy. At the same time.
One such story is written in the fifth chapter of Second Kings.
1. He Had Everything — but He Was a Leper
The “But”
The main character of this story is Naaman. Look at this man: the first verse is his résumé. If Naaman had a business card, it would not have room for all his titles. He is commander of the army of Syria — and Syria in those days was a superpower, the terror of the whole region. And he is not merely a general; he is perhaps the second man after the king. “A great man,” says Scripture, “in high favor.” Why? Because he was a winner, a national hero, a mighty man of valor. Every boy wanted to grow up to be Naaman. This is exactly how we all define blessing and picture success.
And then, once all the successes and honors have been listed, Scripture sets down one short word: “but.” “…he was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.” One word cancels out all that syrup of achievement. In the barrel of honey a spoonful of tar has turned up. “But — a leper.”
Leprosy
Today the word “leprosy” means almost nothing to us, but in the ancient world it was a death sentence. It was the disease people feared most. It began almost imperceptibly — a pale spot on the skin that would lose its feeling. Leprosy deadened the nerves, and patch by patch the body stopped feeling pain. And a person who can no longer feel pain begins to maim himself without noticing: a burn, a cut, a wound — he does not feel them, does not protect them, and they fester. The disease slowly, year by year, took the body away piece by piece. It did not kill at once — it separated. The leper became a shadow, a walking corpse. He became unclean, and he was put out of society, out of the temple, out of his own home; no one could touch him.
And leprosy did not care who stood before it — a general or a simple peasant. It struck everyone, and there was no cure. Naaman’s leprosy was hidden under his armor. Not his medals, not his fame, not the fear he struck into his enemies — nothing could cover it. Naaman was slowly dying and could do nothing about it.
Two Questions
Those are the facts. Now let us let the text speak to us. Two questions arise here.
First question: where did Naaman’s victories come from? Where did all this success come from? The text answers on its own: “by him the LORD had given victory to Syria.” Not the idols of Damascus, not the genius of the commander, not his army — the LORD, the God of Israel. And with this we readily agree. Victories are from the Lord. Blessings are from the Lord. Everything good is from God: health, success, victory — that is God’s hand. Understood.
Second question: and where did Naaman’s leprosy come from? The text does not seem to say so directly, but we will see the answer if we read the whole story carefully. There are three possible answers: it just happened on its own; Satan brought it on; God sent it.
This question stumps many Christians, even though the answer is well known from Scripture. Because another answer is already prepared inside us, and the right one we often do not want to accept. We say: “Leprosy? Well, of course that’s from Satan. Leprosy is a disease, it’s evil, and God has nothing to do with it.” Or someone will say, “Maybe God just wasn’t paying attention.” And do you see what we have just done? We took the good from God’s hand, but the evil we tore out of God’s hand and handed to someone else. We sorted one man into two boxes. We drew a line past which God is no longer allowed to act, and we forbade Him to work in ways we don’t like. Victory — from God, but leprosy — from Satan or from chance. But is that what Scripture teaches? Let us look at a few texts before we draw a conclusion.
Job
Everyone remembers Job. In a single day everything was taken from him — his children, his wealth, his health; his body was covered with sores, like Naaman’s. His wife says to him, “Curse God and die.” But he answers, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10). He refuses to sort his life into two boxes; he refuses to forbid God to act in ways he doesn’t like. Both the good and the evil — from one hand. And Scripture immediately adds, “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” Which means Job read the situation rightly.
Paul
Paul had a thorn in the flesh. Listen how precisely he describes it: “a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited” (2 Cor. 12:7). On one side — it is “a messenger of Satan,” sent to harass him. On the other — it is “given,” and given by God, with a purpose: “to keep me from becoming conceited.” And notice: Paul did not like this thorn at all; he did not want to endure it, and three times he pleaded with the Lord to remove it (2 Cor. 12:8). He asked — and God answered “no.” Not because He could not remove it, but because the thorn was needed: “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). So the thorn remained not apart from God’s will but by it — God held it there deliberately. One and the same thorn: Satan delivers it, and God sends it and assigns it its purpose. Yes, Satan can be the agent. But the agent does nothing without the knowledge and design of the One who holds all things.
Isaiah
Through Isaiah, God speaks of Himself in a way that leaves no more room to argue: “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things” (Isa. 45:7). Not “I permit it somewhere off to the side,” but “I do it. I, the LORD.”
The Man Born Blind
And there was also the man blind from birth. The disciples were very eager to find the cause of his suffering: since he was blind from birth, he could not yet have sinned himself — so they ask Christ: who is to blame, he or his parents? They look for guilt in the past. But Christ turns their gaze forward: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). Blindness is not punishment and not accident. It has a purpose.
The Almighty’s Design
So where did Naaman’s leprosy come from? The answer — from God. And Naaman’s victory is from God, and Naaman’s leprosy is from God. From one hand, at the same time. And that hand has a design — the design of the Almighty.
Before you protest, before you say, “Isn’t God too cruel, to play with lives like this,” read the story to the end. Look at that design — it lies right there in the text. What drove the great Naaman to seek the God of Israel? Leprosy. It was not his victories that drove him to the prophet — his victories kept him at the top, content with himself. It was leprosy that drove him down: into a foreign land, to a prophet, to a river. Take away the leprosy, and there is no journey, no meeting, no cleansing. The curse turned out to be a blessing. God had not failed to notice and was not destroying — He was bringing His future son down to where mercy was waiting for him.
C. S. Lewis put it more precisely than anyone: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
The Walkie-Talkie
Why does God need a megaphone? Why shout at all, if He can simply whisper? Simply because every one of us, without exception, is a self-absorbed egotist who hears no one but himself. A whisper is heard only by the one who is listening, and we have forgotten how to listen; we hear only ourselves.
There is a mode of communication called half-duplex. As children we had walkie-talkies that worked exactly this way: while one is speaking, the other hears nothing. To speak, you press the button and talk; to hear, you have to be silent and let the button go. Families often talk like this. And, honestly, so do we. Sometimes you watch a conversation where each person takes a turn saying his line, but is really talking to himself. Two conversations are going on at once, each about its own thing. One “transmits,” while the other is not receiving but preparing his reply. Two monologues pretending to be a dialogue.
And with God we are often on the same wavelength: we speak, we ask, we demand — but we never let go of the button. We have gripped that walkie-talkie, taped the button down, and go through life like that, always “transmitting.” And then God takes up the megaphone. We fall ill, lose our jobs, suffer, end up in accidents — because otherwise God cannot get through to us. Pain is when God presses down so hard that at last we have to fall silent and hear. Naaman’s leprosy was just such a megaphone. And we cannot even imagine how hard it was for him to let go of that button and listen.
2. He Would Have Done Anything — but He Would Not Go Down
His Own Level
So Naaman learned that in Israel there was a prophet who could heal him. How does he approach the matter? Like a man of his rank — that is, he does not go and ask for help in person. He handles it the way he is used to: at the highest level. Naaman goes to his own king, and the king of Syria writes a letter to the king of Israel.
“So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothes.” The elite appeals to the elite. Naaman takes a whole fortune with him, because that is how “important people” get things done: through connections, through money, through a letter from one official to another. Logical, proper, according to protocol.
But something doesn’t add up, and a disappointment awaits Naaman: at the highest level this matter cannot be solved. The situation even becomes comic. Picture the king of Israel: a letter arrives that, in effect, reads, “Dear colleague, here is Naaman; please cure him of an incurable disease. Regards, the king of Syria.” The king of Israel reads it, is horrified, and tears his clothes: “Am I God, to kill and to make alive?” Yes, the highest level is powerless. Not a letter, not silver, not any king can take away leprosy. There is no healing at the top — it is several floors down. And down there he will have to go.
Step One: The Little Girl
God wants to bring Naaman down — step by step. And at every step Naaman resists.
Remember how it all began? With a captive little girl. A small slave whom the Syrians had carried off from Israel. There was no one lower in Naaman’s house than she: a child, a foreigner, a girl, a slave, a prisoner — in that culture she had no voice whatsoever. But it was precisely she who spoke the word that could save her master. Salvation came to the great man from below — from the place he never thought to look, from the least noticeable person in his house. And, finding himself in a hopeless situation, he stooped and listened to the girl, because after all he grasped at that hope.
Step Two: The Prophet
Stepping over himself, Naaman set off for Samaria and drove up to Elisha’s house — with his horses, his chariot, in all his splendor. He expected the great prophet to come out to the great man: to come out, stand, solemnly call on the name of the Lord, wave his hand over the diseased spot, perform some ritual. Why did he expect this? Because that is how a man of his rank ought to be received, and because that, in his mind, is how healing ought to happen.
But Elisha does not even come out. He, so to speak, sends Naaman a brief message through a servant: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times.” What disrespect! What a blow. Another step down. You don’t even get a king — you don’t even get the prophet; they hand you a “do-it-yourself” instruction through some servant.
Step Three: The Jordan
The third step — a muddy river. And here Naaman explodes. Listen to him — it is the cry of wounded dignity: “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God … and cure the leper.” “I thought” — he had his own script, his own picture of how God was obligated to heal him: beautifully, solemnly, at his level. And they tell him: get into the Jordan, into a muddy, shallow, common little river that anyone can wade into. And he answers in a purely human way: “Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?” Back home my rivers are cleaner, I have my own method — my own, well-tuned, elegant one. He is ready to be healed, but at his own level, in his own water, the way he is used to. He is ready to do anything except the one thing — to step over himself and go down.
Step Four: The Servants
The fourth step — the servants. Naaman, his dignity injured, irritated and disappointed, has already turned to go home. And once again the voice comes from below. Not a superior, not the prophet — his own servants carefully come up and say: “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” The most precise diagnosis — and once again from the mouths of little people.
Do you see the same pattern? At every step grace calls him down, and he wants to stay up, on his own floor. His trouble is not that the cure is hard. His trouble is that the cure is beneath his dignity.
Until He Went Down, He Was Not Healed
Here is what matters to see in Naaman’s story. As long as he stands at his own level — he is a leper. As long as he angrily turns his chariot around — a leper. With all his medals, with all his silver, with his cleaner rivers — a leper. Leprosy does not care how great he is. He can keep all his dignity — and die a leper. Or he can lose his dignity and his honors — and become clean. There is no third option. Healing is only down below, in humility and brokenness.
And in despair he finally goes down. In the original there is a beautiful play on words here. The text uses a simple word — “he went down” (Hebrew yarad, “to descend”). From the same root comes the name Yarden — the Jordan. Naaman goes into low water that descends still lower — into the lowest point on the planet, the Dead Sea, lying 440 metres below sea level. He literally goes down, into descending water, dips himself seven times — and, happy ending, he is healed.
To be healed, Naaman had to leave his penthouse and come down to the ground. To leave at the bank the chariot, the servants, the retinue — everything that defined him and made him great. And just like that, as he is — nothing extra, nothing of his own — he washed seven times in the Jordan. He came down not only to the river but from the height of his position: he stood in the water not as a commander but as a plain sick man who is told what to do — and obeys. He admitted that the one in charge here is not he but God.
And notice at what moment he was cleansed. Not when he received the message, not when he arrived with his chariots, not when he was indignant — but in the very instant when he went down and submitted. As long as he held on to his level, he stayed a leper. The moment he let it go, he became clean.
The Mirror: This Is Me
This story is written in the Bible for us. It is very easy to laugh at Naaman, but we ourselves often behave in exactly the same way. This story is not about him. It is about us.
Each of us has his own floor — a level below which we refuse to go. True, not all of us live in a penthouse like Naaman; we live on different floors. But none of us wants to come down from his own — exactly as Naaman did not want to. In order to heal us, God keeps calling us to come down, and we dig in our heels.
Recently in our home group we were talking about quarrels. We recalled conflicts we had been part of; some told the substance of them out loud. And an interesting detail emerged: in every conflict brought up, the one telling it was the victim — he had been wronged. But no one recalled a conflict in which he himself was the cause of it, where he himself had acted wrongly. And then the question was raised: recall even one conflict where you yourself were in the wrong. I frantically ran through every quarrel in my memory, analyzed them — and came to a very interesting conclusion: it turns out I was always right. And, it seems, everyone in the group came to the same conclusion, because no one, in the end, could recall a conflict where he had been wrong.
Recall your last quarrel. Who was in the wrong in it? Of course not you. And why is it so hard for us to recall even one situation where we were the ones in the wrong? Because we have taken the walkie-talkie, jammed the button down, and are shouting only our own thing into it. It turns out we are unable to stop, be silent, and listen. We are unable to stoop one floor down and hear our wife, hear our child, hear a brother who — so it seems to us — understands nothing about the circumstances of my life. We do not hear counsel and correction — not because it is bad, but because someone “lower” said it: younger, simpler, further off.
The Staircase Downward
God pulled the deafened Naaman out through the megaphone of leprosy. But Naaman was not merely healed — his behavior shows the marks of salvation too. He bowed and glorified God; he understood that worshipping the Syrian gods was wrong; after meeting Elisha he became a different man. Without the leprosy, none of this would have happened. Naaman had to go down, to pass through all the steps downward.
And this staircase downward does not end at the Jordan — it goes lower still. There was One whose level was higher than every level in the world. Equal to God, higher than any king, any prophet, any ruler. And here is what Scripture says of Him: He “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant … he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6–8).
He went down lower than the Jordan — into the very abyss, to conquer death and deliver us from it. He alone had every right to remain at the very top — and He alone went down to the very bottom. From the throne — to a manger; from the manger — to people; from people — to the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He went down into our death to pull us out of it. There is nowhere lower to go. Naaman needed only to go down into the Jordan to be cleansed — but Christ went down into our death to cleanse us.
3. He Saw Everything — but He Lost Everything
The False Ending
Naaman stepped over himself, went down to the Jordan, and received healing and salvation. The story seems to be over — and to have ended beautifully: Naaman is clean, saved, confessing the one God, and the prophet says to him, “Go in peace.” A happy ending; we can all go home.
But there is one more person in this story, and we absolutely must see him. And he is not an outsider. It is Gehazi — the prophet’s servant. One of us; a believer; the man who for years has stood right at the fountain of grace. He saw it all: the leprosy, the miracle, the freely given healing. But while Naaman was humbling himself and going down, Gehazi did the exact opposite. Hearing that his master had refused to take Naaman’s gifts, he said to himself, “As the LORD lives, I will run after him and get something from him” (2 Kings 5:20). He ran after the departing Syrian, deceitfully wheedled silver and garments out of him, hid it all at home, and returned to the prophet as if nothing had happened.
And Elisha said to him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?” And he said, “Your servant went nowhere.” But he said to him, “… Was it a time to accept money and garments, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, male servants and female servants? Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever.” So he went out from his presence a leper, like snow. (2 Kings 5:25–27)
Or Maybe You Are Gehazi
That very leprosy of Naaman’s passes to Gehazi. He goes out from the prophet a leper, white as snow. How terrifying! The outsider who went down walked away clean; but the insider who exalted himself became a leper. Gehazi was an ordinary believer — one of us, in the church, right at the fountain.
Why do I say Gehazi is closer to us than Naaman? Because Jesus recalled this story in a similar context: “there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:27). That is, there were many of their own — leprous Israelites — and not one was cleansed, while some, like Gehazi, were even struck with leprosy unexpectedly. The only one cleansed was the one who went down — and it did not matter that he was a Syrian, an outsider. For these words the synagogue leaders led Jesus up a hill to throw Him down.
Pride
Brothers and sisters, this is pride. But not the pride of kings and villains — that one is easy to pin on others. Naaman’s pride we easily wave off: it’s not about us, we don’t have such salaries, houses, cars and achievements, we have nothing to be proud of, we are simple people. But there is another pride — the quiet pride of the ordinary believer. The one who is always right. The one who, standing at the fountain of grace, will not come down below the dignity of his own floor.
Look around: every sin begins with pride. Pride today ruins whole nations; people kill one another and cannot stop. Pride has destroyed countless relationships, wrecks families and friendships, has spoiled the beautiful world God made. With pride the whole drama of human history began: first a beautiful angel of light proudly wanted to be God and was cast down, and then the first people proudly wanted to decide for themselves what is good and what is evil — and were driven out of the garden.
“What Is the Point of Winning Every Argument?”
I worked at a company where every year they did a performance review. It went like this: everyone who worked with you was asked to write a few words about you, and then an anonymous summary was compiled — what people think of you and what is worth improving. A pity we don’t do this in church — perhaps it would resolve many silent conflicts. One year I was given this piece of feedback: “What is the point of winning every argument if, after that, no one wants to work with you?”
I like to do work well, and I can hold a very strong opinion. But really — what is the point of being proven right in every work dispute if the whole team then hates you? People are not programs; people must be loved, one must find a way to them, one must come down to people, whatever floor you are on. And strong opinions, it turns out, one must learn to lay down for the sake of peace and a common goal.
Brothers and sisters, we are going to spend eternity together. What is the point of being right now — and not ending up there together? Right now, at the Supper, we are rehearsing that shared wedding feast that awaits us in eternity. If you cannot bear someone here, how will you bear him in eternity? Secretly you may already have decided that he or she will not be beside you in eternity. But what if it is you who will not be there? What if you, like Gehazi, cannot overcome your pride — and end up a leper?
Our Leprosy
Brothers and sisters, the leprosy is already attacking the organs, and they are losing their feeling. For years we carry resentment against one another, we look away when we meet and do not greet each other, we talk behind backs. And whose fault is it? Ask yourself, each of you, honestly: whose fault is it? And listen to the answer that sounds from within. Pride says: it’s not me! It’s not my fault — it’s his fault, her fault, their fault. I am the one who’s right. I was wronged; I was treated unjustly.
Maybe you really are right. Maybe you really were wronged. But that very being-right is the leprosy. Because it keeps you upstairs, on your floor, and will not let you go down first. Will not let you come over. Will not let you say: forgive me. Will not let you forgive. And as long as you hold on to your being-right, you, like Gehazi, stand right at the fountain of grace — and walk away from it a leper.
Think about what this means. We are Christians who cannot forgive other Christians. We come to the one table of the Lord — and cannot look one another in the eye. It is an oxymoron; it is impossible. But, sadly, today it is our reality. I say this not to accuse anyone — I am at this table myself. I say it because this disease is slowly killing us.
Conclusion
There is no ideal church here on earth — and perhaps that is not so terrible. What matters is not what was, but what comes next. We do not need to be right — we need to be forgiven and forgiving. We do not need to be ideal — we need to be a family. We need to settle the question of our pride.
And I ask one thing, I beg it: do not wait for someone to come to you. Come down from your floor first. Not tomorrow, not “when he makes a move,” but today. Go to a brother or a sister, ask forgiveness, shake a hand, embrace. And if the person you need to be reconciled with is far away, pick up your phone, call, and ask forgiveness.
There is a Japanese proverb: if you have missed your station, get off at the next one. Because the further you ride, the longer and harder it is to come back. And we have been riding with these resentments for years now. Get off — before you ride even further away. Let us stop pride today and behave the way Christians are meant to behave.
We have said much today, but as a keepsake I would like to leave a children’s rhyme that has stayed lodged in my memory since childhood. In it is the whole point of this sermon:
If you would keep your God close by,
And through life lightly go,
Then hold your heart up high,
And bow your head down low!
Heart toward heaven, head down low. There is the simple motto. Let us pray.