Carrying Some Dirt

…please give your servant a load of dirt, enough for a pair of mules to carry, for your servant will never again offer a burnt offering or sacrifice to a god other than the Lord. – 2 Kings 5:17 (NET)

In the fifth chapter of the second book of the Kings, we meet a Syrian general by the name of Namaan. He is introduced to us as “the commander of the king of Syria’s army” (5:1b). Right away, we learn an interesting and often overlooked fact about him, in that “through him the Lord had given Syria military victories” (5:1d), and for this reason, he “was esteemed and respected by his master” (5:1c). However, the thing for which we are most familiar with Namaan is that “this great warrior had a skin disease” (5:1e). Generally, this “skin disease” is referred to as “leprosy,” but in the Scriptures, “leprosy” is a term that is used to denote a variety of skin ailments, up to and including that which we think of as leprosy in our own day. He was informed by one of his wife’s servants, a young girl from Israel, that there was a prophet in Israel that could “cure him of his skin disease” (5:3b).

As we well know, Namaan seized on this information, went to Israel to visit the prophet Elisha, received instruction as to how he could be cleansed, eventually acceded to the directive though he initially opposed it, and was healed of his ailment. His response to being healed was to say “For sure I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel!” (5:15b). To give weight to his proclamation, Namaan offered to give Elisha a gift, which Elisha refused. Upon this, Namaan made a very interesting request, asking Elisha to “please give your servant a load of dirt, enough for a pair of mules to carry” (5:17a). He asked this of Elisha because, according to his pronouncement that “there is no God in all the earth except in Israel,” Namaan never again wanted to “offer a burnt offering or sacrifice to a god other than the Lord” (5:17b).

We might think that this would be easy enough to avoid, but for Namaan there was a complication, in that the king of Syria, from whom Namaan had garnered respect and esteem, precisely because “the Lord had given Syria military victories” through Namaan, relied on Namaan when he went to the temple of his god to offer worship. Namaan, speaking with a heartfelt conviction, said, “May the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to worship, and he leans on my arm and I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this” (5:18). Noting Namaan’s sincerity in this, as it was in conjunction with the request of dirt from the land of Israel---dirt on which Namaan, presumably, was going to kneel down in worship to the Lord---Elisha replies favorably to him, saying “Go in peace” (5:19b).

What can be learned from this story of Namaan in relation to the covenant bearing Gospel message that Jesus is the crucified and resurrected Messiah and Lord of all? One of the most significant parts of this story, upon which we can seize to make an important analogy in relation to the effects of Jesus’ Resurrection, is Namaan’s request for some of the dirt of the land. As has been said, Namaan desired to return to Syria with part of the land of Israel. He intended to return to his nation with a small part of that which had been promised to God’s covenant people and which marked out God’s power to perform His promises and prove His faithfulness to those that are called by His Name. Namaan wanted to make his way back home with a measure of the very ground to be found in the land of promise that God had given to Abraham and his descendants as the first-to-be-redeemed component of a once-good creation that God would eventually fully redeem through His messiah by the death-defeating power of the Resurrection. He did this so that even though he was physically walking in one world---the land of Syria, he would be able to possess a portion of the land of promise, and through that, count himself as one of God’s covenant people, enjoying the Lord’s faithfulness.

We can apply this to ourselves in this day, for as we are in union with Christ, believing through in His Gospel by the faith that is granted to those that hear the Gospel message which contains the very power of God, we find ourselves in a position similar to that of Namaan. Though we walk in this world in which we still find death and corruption, and though our allegiances appear to be divided and our feet become dirty as we walk the dusty paths of this world, through the gift of the Spirit which fosters a trusting allegiance in Jesus as the powerful ruler of this world through the kingdom of God that was inaugurated at His Resurrection, we carry the power of kingdom of heaven into this world, as vessels for God’s glory, being used to carry God’s transformative power into a still-fallen and groaning creation that awaits the final putting-down of an already defeated foe named death. As we proclaim the Gospel, in word and deed, embodying God’s covenant faithfulness as the new creation that is the kingdom of heaven on earth breaks in upon this present age, we figuratively carry two mule-loads of the dirt of the fully restored creation---the consummated kingdom of God to which we look in hopeful and trusting expectation---into our world.