You Will Become Clean
(A short story based on a poem of mine based on (2 Kings 5:13)
Naaman had always been a man who filled a room. Even before he spoke, people straightened their backs, adjusted their cloaks, and tried to look useful. He was the commander of Aram’s armies, a man whose victories were sung by soldiers around their fires. Yet for all his strength, Naaman carried a private dread beneath his armour: the creeping, mottled patches on his skin that no ointment, no priest, no whispered charm had ever eased. The scourge of leprosy.
He hid it well. A general learns to hide many things. But the disease advanced, slow and relentless, and Naaman felt his world narrowing. He feared the day when his men would recoil, or when the king’s favour would cool into pity.
It was a young servant girl, an Israelite taken in war, who first spoke hope into his despair. She told Naaman’s wife of a prophet in Samaria, a man of God who could heal what no physician could touch. Naaman resisted the idea at first. It seemed absurd that a foreign holy man might succeed where Aram’s finest healers had failed. But desperation has a way of loosening pride, and soon he was on the road with a royal letter, gifts, and a caravan of soldiers.
When he reached the house of Elisha, he expected ceremony. He expected the prophet to come out, wave his hands, call upon heaven, and perform something suitably impressive for a man of his rank. Instead, a servant opened the door and delivered a simple message:
“Go and wash in the Jordan seven times. Your flesh will be restored, and you will become clean.”
Naaman felt heat rise in his chest: anger, humiliation, disbelief. The Jordan? That muddy trickle compared to the broad rivers of Damascus? Was this a joke at his expense? He turned his horse sharply, ready to leave the whole foolish errand behind.
But his servants, who knew him well enough to risk honesty, rode alongside and spoke gently.
“My father,” one said, “if the prophet had asked you to do something difficult, you would have done it. Why not try this simple thing?”
Their words settled on him like cool water. Naaman slowed. Pride is a heavy armour, and he felt its weight now. He realised he could either cling to it or be healed, but not both. So he went down to the Jordan.
The water was cold, unremarkable, almost disappointing. But he stepped in. Once. Twice. Three times. With each immersion he felt something loosening, not on his skin, but in his heart. By the seventh time, when he rose and wiped the water from his eyes, he saw his flesh renewed, smooth as a child’s.
Naaman stood in the river, stunned. The healing was real, but so was the change within him. He had come seeking a cure; he received instead a lesson in humility, trust, and the quiet power of obedience.
And as he rode home, the sunlight warm on his restored skin, he understood something he had never grasped before: sometimes the smallest act, stepping into the water, admitting our need, is the doorway through which grace enters and makes us clean.
But Naaman’s story lingers long after. The water that restored him still speaks to us, still moves through the life of the Church. The water washes still today, when we follow on this way, in prayer and water, making us clean. In every baptism, even in the gentle lifting of a child at the font, and the pouring of water over the head, the same quiet mercy flows, the same invitation of grace and renewal.
(A short story based on a poem of mine based on (2 Kings 5:13)
Naaman had always been a man who filled a room. Even before he spoke, people straightened their backs, adjusted their cloaks, and tried to look useful. He was the commander of Aram’s armies, a man whose victories were sung by soldiers around their fires. Yet for all his strength, Naaman carried a private dread beneath his armour: the creeping, mottled patches on his skin that no ointment, no priest, no whispered charm had ever eased. The scourge of leprosy.
He hid it well. A general learns to hide many things. But the disease advanced, slow and relentless, and Naaman felt his world narrowing. He feared the day when his men would recoil, or when the king’s favour would cool into pity.
It was a young servant girl, an Israelite taken in war, who first spoke hope into his despair. She told Naaman’s wife of a prophet in Samaria, a man of God who could heal what no physician could touch. Naaman resisted the idea at first. It seemed absurd that a foreign holy man might succeed where Aram’s finest healers had failed. But desperation has a way of loosening pride, and soon he was on the road with a royal letter, gifts, and a caravan of soldiers.
When he reached the house of Elisha, he expected ceremony. He expected the prophet to come out, wave his hands, call upon heaven, and perform something suitably impressive for a man of his rank. Instead, a servant opened the door and delivered a simple message:
“Go and wash in the Jordan seven times. Your flesh will be restored, and you will become clean.”
Naaman felt heat rise in his chest: anger, humiliation, disbelief. The Jordan? That muddy trickle compared to the broad rivers of Damascus? Was this a joke at his expense? He turned his horse sharply, ready to leave the whole foolish errand behind.
But his servants, who knew him well enough to risk honesty, rode alongside and spoke gently.
“My father,” one said, “if the prophet had asked you to do something difficult, you would have done it. Why not try this simple thing?”
Their words settled on him like cool water. Naaman slowed. Pride is a heavy armour, and he felt its weight now. He realised he could either cling to it or be healed, but not both. So he went down to the Jordan.
The water was cold, unremarkable, almost disappointing. But he stepped in. Once. Twice. Three times. With each immersion he felt something loosening, not on his skin, but in his heart. By the seventh time, when he rose and wiped the water from his eyes, he saw his flesh renewed, smooth as a child’s.
Naaman stood in the river, stunned. The healing was real, but so was the change within him. He had come seeking a cure; he received instead a lesson in humility, trust, and the quiet power of obedience.
And as he rode home, the sunlight warm on his restored skin, he understood something he had never grasped before: sometimes the smallest act, stepping into the water, admitting our need, is the doorway through which grace enters and makes us clean.
But Naaman’s story lingers long after. The water that restored him still speaks to us, still moves through the life of the Church. The water washes still today, when we follow on this way, in prayer and water, making us clean. In every baptism, even in the gentle lifting of a child at the font, and the pouring of water over the head, the same quiet mercy flows, the same invitation of grace and renewal.
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