This is one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament, and it’s about as gospel as it gets. It shakes our carefully constructed selves before it finishes us off by drowning us in mercy.

Naaman. His name in the Ugaritic language means charm or loveliness. He must have been something. I’m thinking Russell Crowe as Maximus in Gladiator. Handsome and tough. Ladies’ man. Charmer. A great man, the text says, a mighty warrior.

Naaman probably fought his way to the top. He’s a general in the Syrian army with no more worlds to conquer. The Syrian Arameans apparently had the upper hand in the region that the time. He probably wants to go home to a good woman, raise some crops and rear some kids. And why not? He’s earned it. He has the ear and favor of the king himself. He has served his king well. But now, instead of asking for some time off to start a family and a farm, he needs something more and something else. He needs the king of Aram to use all his powers to do something for him. Naaman, you see, the man who has it all, also has leprosy.

It turns out charming, lovely, mighty Naaman is human after all — vulnerable, sick, unclean, tainted. He has defeated every enemy possible, but he is afflicted with a skin disease that must be not only worrisome to him but embarrassing. It doesn’t say that he did anything wrong to get it, just that he’s got it. And it’s taking some loveliness and charm off his look. It may even be fatal–hard to say. At the very least it’s enough to make him desperate for a cure.

Isn’t that the way it is? We go along trying to make something of ourselves, trying to protect against the fates. We make good grades. We become professionals. We build our businesses and reputations to the point where we seem invincible. We sock away money for a rainy day, insure ourselves to the hilt. And then, Bang! Leprosy. Heart disease. Cancer. Parkinson’s. Dementia. All of a sudden we are down on our knees looking for cures anywhere we can find them. All of sudden we realize how fragile we are, how mortal.

Sometimes it isn’t a physical ailment that knocks us down. A death to a loved one, a divorce, a bankruptcy, an accident. One way or another, here’s the truth: nobody who gets to the top can stay there forever. Sooner or later disease, misfortune, and death will catch up with every one of us. We’ll all end up sliding downhill, like it or not. And we’ll never like it on purpose.

Kim and I drove out to youth camp the other night and took part in the worship time. The camp theme was The Divine Romance. Our relationship with God is one of love and passion, akin to the kind of abandon we experience in romantic relationships. But on Wednesday they looked at how love can sometimes be challenged, how things can go bad in our relationship with God. Among the reasons are when bad things happen to us and it seems God is nowhere to be found.

They showed a video clip of one of the most dramatic scenes in television history. It’s from last season’s finale of the show The West Wing. President Josiah Bartlet has thought of himself as being on good terms, maybe even a first-name basis, with God. He thinks of his political life as an expression of his spiritual calling. He faces two huge unwelcome challenges at this moment in his life. For years he has kept from the American people his diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. He promised his wife he would step down after four years, but he wants to run for reelection. He is angry that he’s in this position, just when he has gotten to the position when he can do the most good for God. And then the crushing blow. His secretary, Mrs. Landingham, who has been with him his entire political life and even served his father before him, is killed in an auto accident on her way back to the White House after buying her very first new car.

The funeral is over at the National Cathedral, and President Bartlet orders the church sealed off. He stalks God up the aisle of the nave and storms the altar in a reasoned rage. He blames God for being a "feckless thud," a cruel and uncaring deity, never satisfied with the good things Josiah does for him. It’s a moment so close to blasphemy we have to watch and listen. But all the while you know he has no doubt he is talking to a God who is listening. You never once question whether he questions whether God is powerful enough to right these wrongs or come to his aid. All you can see is a man who knows he’s come to the limits of his own power. His defiant lecture of God is really a crippling cry of a crippled man seeking mercy.

No one is above tragedy. We are all, as the hymn puts it, frail creatures of dust and feeble as frail. And in the end, we can only depend on a power that is so far above and beyond us and all earthly powers that we can only hope to reach it.

Enter the good news. We can’t reach up far enough to grasp the power that alone can save us. So God reaches down to us. But lest you think God dangles that power just above our outstretched hand, think again. God reaches down and places the power of salvation beneath us! The only way we can reach it is by stooping down for it. We have to humble ourselves and get off our proud perches if we are to be made whole.

Look at the story a little closer. God gets to Naaman from the underside. A young unnamed Israelite slave girl brings the first word of the Lord. She had been captured on a raid and was serving Naaman’s wife. She says his only hope is to see a prophet of Israel’s God in Samaria.

Isn’t this something in itself? Don’t you know Naaman has seen every doctor and medicine man in every village in Aram? Don’t you know he has already spent a fortune on legitimate cures? But he is desperate enough at last to try anything. He listens to a word from beneath his station. A slave girl points him toward his healing.

We were just in Atlanta for the CBF meeting, as you know, and while there we took the tour of CNN. Ted Turner started CNN in 1980 and built it into a remarkable global enterprise. Although he’s sold out to AOL Time Warner, he still haunts the place. You’ve heard about his recent divorce from Jane Fonda. Know why? She became a Christian. Ted has said publicly he thinks religion is for losers. He once thought he was called to missionary service and claimed to have been saved seven times, but he has been a firm nonbeliever since the death of his sister Mary Jane from a form of lupus some years ago. See, it touches everyone. He felt God had betrayed him. Jane has found strength in Christ, though. And she found it from beneath her, so to speak. Her chauffer, a servant in her household, led her to church and to a living faith in Jesus Christ. She attends his black Baptist church in Atlanta nowadays. How’s that for humility? She realized that all she had was not worth the one thing she lacked — a relationship with Christ that could only be had by going lower herself to receive his gift of true peace.

There is a marvelous subplot to this healing story of Naaman that we have already touched on. The powerful are shown to be powerless to do what only God can do, and the powerless are shown to be powerful agents of God. No one in Syria can heal Naaman. The king of Aram sends Naaman to the king of Israel for help. Naaman has all the credentials behind him and pot of gold to boot. But the king of Israel knows how impotent he is and that only God can heal. Elisha hears of this and calls Naaman to come to him. But when the general arrives, the bald-headed, hot-headed prophet pays him no respect. Naaman takes it as an insult, but Elisha doesn’t want Naaman to confuse him for God. He doesn’t even go out to meet him. He just sends a messenger. And again we see that grace that comes from on high bubbles up from below. Elisha’s humility allows for God to be exalted. By remaining unseen, he allows for the unseen God to be seen.

This is why it is so dangerous to put preachers on a pedestal. This is why we have to be careful of celebrity preachers. This is why we have to be discerning about pastors who get profiles done on them in the newspaper, don’t you know?! If they get too high and mighty, too visible, the temptation is to see them and not see God by means of them. God may bring you the word that heals you and saves you from beneath the pulpit as well as from up in it. Those in the pew may lead you to the waters that wash you and make you clean.

So what does Elisha say? He tells Naaman to go wash seven times in the shallow, muddy creek they call the River Jordan. It ain’t much to look at, as rivers go, even today. Naaman tips us off that the same was true back then. How about Abana and Pharpar, our glorious rivers in Syria? Wouldn’t they be better?

Naaman needs to learn the upside-down logic of the kingdom of God. It’s not the quality of the water or where it’s located that does the trick. It’s not the magic of the wand or the special words like spells that bring healing. It’s not who you know or who you are that matters. Healing and salvation lie beneath you, waiting for you to go down low enough in humble obedience to God that you may know its power.

This is why we baptize the way we do. We don’t want you thinking that all you need is a little holy water sprinkled on you to add a little God potion to your already pretty-goodness. You need to humble yourself completely, giving yourself totally to God. Only then will you know God’s saving power.

Naaman’s servants tell him to get off his high horse. It seems too easy. If Elisha had said to do something really hard, Naaman would have jumped at it. But then he would be again trying to separate himself from everyone else by his valor. This way, he has to go down low with everyone else.

What about you? Are you too proud to be humble? Too high to go low? What lies beneath you is the only hope you have. Is it too far beneath you to stoop to where life can be found? It wasn’t too far beneath Jesus. He went all the way down to the bottom of life in order to bring up with him all who meet him there. Will you meet him there?