Monday 4 March 2024

Today is Monday the 4th of March, in the third week of Lent.

One Hope Project sings, ‘Abba Father’.

Abba Father breathe on me
Wash me in Your glory
When faith is frail You carry me
In Your presence I am free




Today’s reading is from the Second Book of Kings.

2 Kings 5: 1-15

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favour with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, ‘If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.’ So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, ‘Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.’

He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, ‘When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.’ When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, ‘Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.’

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, ‘Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.’ So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, ‘Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.’ But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, ‘I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?’ He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, ‘Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, “Wash, and be clean”?’ So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, ‘Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant.’

Naaman is a great man, a victorious army commander. Yet his illness leaves him isolated, cut off from his community. What is there be in your own experience that gives you some sense of what that isolation might be like?

The initial encounter with Elisha gives Naaman hope of a cure, of being able to take up again his place in society. Again, what is there in your experience that could offer you some sense of what those feelings of hope are like?

As the passage is read again, notice the difference in tone between the two stages of Naaman’s dealings with Elisha.

At the end of the passage Naaman is full of gratitude for all that God has done for him. As this prayer comes towards an end, take a moment or two to express your own gratitude to God.

You have given all to me
To you, Lord, I return it
Everything is Yours
Do with it what You will
Give me only Your love and Your grace
That is enough for me
Amen