It Seems Too Easy

Namaan, the leper, is a great warrior. Brave and strong, but he is burdened with disease that leaves him not fully part of his culture. Leprosy is an itchy, scaly, highly contagious skin disease. Usually people with leprosy were ostracized. But, because he is such a great soldier, they tolerate him. He is married, and his wife complains to her servant girl about being married to this leper.

And she says, “There’s a prophet in Israel, who can heal him.” We just heard the story, he goes to the King of Israel with a letter from the King of Aram. And the King of Israel sees the overture as an attempt to pick a fight and tears his robes in distress. But, Elisha hears that the King has torn his robes and says, “Have him come see me.”

Namaan goes with his horses and his chariots, and is met at Elisha’s door by a messenger. All this way, and the prophet doesn’t even come out himself. “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

And Namaan cannot believe it. The least this prophet could do is come out of his house and see me. Stand there and call on God; wave his hand over the sores and cure me. Surely, he could have done something. “Go wash,” he murmured, “I can wash in any pool. Wash, ridiculous. If washing cured leprosy,…. What a waste of time. If he thinks I am going to make a fool of myself and go clear the shore, he’s got another thing coming. Go wash, right.” He’s furious.

He expected to be cured. He hoped to be cured. He was willing to do almost anything to be cured. But, he couldn’t believe that something so easy, so simple, so ordinary could so completely change his life.

The church at Colossae was struggling to believe that something as simple as faith and love was enough to, in the words of the introduction to the letter, “qualify you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.” Wasn’t there some other wisdom that they needed? Some other knowledge? Weren’t there things that they were required to do? Shouldn’t grace be harder to get?

And the response is “Be at peace, and be thankful. You only need to do two things: 1. Let the Word dwell in you richly, and the best way to do that is to sing. And 2. Whatever you do, what you say or what action you take, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

The early Christians sang their faith. For one thing, most didn’t read. Even if they could read, there were few copies of the manuscript of Scripture and those were kept at church. Pliny the Younger, around 110 AD wrote to the Emperor Trajan that the Christians gathered early in the morning to chant songs to Christ. Some of the most important doctrines of the early church were expressed in hymns, and Paul quotes them in his letters. One of them, we sing almost every week, the Gloria Patri, dates back to the 1st Century. But, the most important part of singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs isn’t to learn doctrine. It is to sing to God.

C.S. Lewis, wrote a wonderful essay on church music, dealing with disagreements about styles of music for worship. In it, he wrote that we all should defer to our neighbor. We should say to one another, “I want to sing what you want to sing.” But then he writes this, “For all of our offerings, whether of music or martyrdom, are like the intrinsically worthless gift of a child, which a father values but only for their intent.”

All of our offerings, whatever we do, whether we sing or we are martyred, are like the intrinsically worthless gift of a child. Essentially worthless, all our deeds, all our songs to God, all our sacrifice. Worthless.

Which a father values, but only for their intent. “Whatever you do, what you say or what action you take, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” This is a statement about intent. Everything you do or say, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.

The key phrase is “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” What does that mean? It isn’t a magical incantation. The phrase “in the name of” in Biblical times meant that you were assuming the character, the spirit, the nature of that person. Whatever you do or say, do it as though you were Jesus, with his character, his nature, his spirit.

And so we come to this Table, and there is nothing magical, nothing hard, maybe it seems too easy. Take a piece of bread for the journey of life, dip it in the cup of salvation and, like Namaan, be restored and made clean, and receive. Receive the character, the nature, the spirit of the Lord Jesus. Amen.