No one would accuse me of being a baseball fan. I am a World Series fan. My time investment in the game is compressed into about eight or ten days when the national championship is determined by seven games. I’m always happy when it’s played out to the most dramatic possible end - one team winning four, the other, three.

But there are other baseball times when my attention is caught by the drama of some record in the making. Such was my interest in Willie Mays, that phenomenal hitter who caused all America to hold its breath as he pressed on to his record-breaking batting goal.

William Goldman wrote about Willie, a word that sets Willie apart, and presents him up as the incarnation of all that baseball should be.

Willie’s Time (1951—1973)

“I fell in love with him that afternoon. And watching him I realized unconsciously that it was about time he arrived on my horizon, Because during all those years of being bored with baseball Of sitting in the bleacher seats for pitcher’s battles, or dying with the heat while the manager brought in some slow reliever, I’d been waiting for Willie. He was what is was all about. He was the reason. In my head, there was a notion of the way things ought to happen, but never quite do; not until Willie came. And then I could finally sit here and say to myself – “Oh sure, that’s it!” (William Goldman, Berkley Bocks, New York)

For William Goldman, as for many, to think of baseball is to think of Willie Mays: “He was what it was all about.” Goldman’s word about Willie Mays is a slight hint of how suffering, lonely, estranged, desperate people greeted the presence of Jesus. No Gospel writer captures it better than Mark. With story after story, Mark enables us to follow Jesus breathlessly as he comes out of the baptismal waters of Jordon, and moves through that small area of Galilee, followed by crowds who want to hear his word, receive the looks of his compassion, feel his healing touch — want to be near, because they “have a notion of the way things ought to happen, but never quite do, not until (Jesus) came along.”

In out scripture lesson today, we see two persons encountering Jesus – person who longingly and confidently knew that it was about time Jesus arrived on their horizon.

I’ve titled the sermon, “Two For the Price of One” because we have two mighty pictures of faith. Let’s look at these persons with a focus on what they teach us about faith, and our response to Jesus.

I

First, the woman.

Try to sense the drama of it all? A great crowd was pressing in upon Jesus. In the crowd, there was an unnoticed woman. Did anyone around her even see the desperate look on her face? Did they see that longing glaze that glistened in her eyes? Were they aware of the shame and torment through which she was going? She had suffered from a hemorrhaging condition for twelve years. Many physicians had sought to help her, but to no avail.

Where was she when she heard about Jesus? Who told her about Him? We can surmise that the talk about Jesus always went ahead of Him. The news spread that here was new force in the land, possibly the Messiah. Whoever he was, life was being made different by his presence. Demons were being cast out of people. He was calming the sea of its raging storm. Wherever He went, the chief mark of his presence was compassion that resulted in healing.

So the woman had heard. The word had gotten to her village, and she joined the throng that pressed out to get a glimpse of this phenomenal person about whom everybody seemed to be talking. The crowd was great. Excitement was in the air. People were milling around, jockeying for the best place along the roadside, trying to get in a position that they could see this man, maybe touch him or talk to him.

So the woman was there - in desperation - this was her last resort. Can you hear her speak? I believe she was talking to herself, and how audible that was we don’t know. But her word gathered up the depth of her faith. “If I can touch, just touch, even his garments, I shall be made well.” What desperation – what faith.

Some of us may have to struggle a bit to identify with the woman. She came to Jesus as a last resort. She had tried every other cure that the world had to offer, but to no avail, and now she was making one desperate attempt to find an answer to that which ravaged her body.

But, think a moment, do we really have to strain to identify? How many of us came to seek the help of Jesus when we had reached our wit’s end? We had battled with temptation until we could fight it no longer. We had struggled with some exhausting task until we were at the breaking point, and knew that we needed a strength that we didn’t have. We had wallowed around in guilt until we knew that guilt was going to destroy us, and we turned to the only place we knew to turn perhaps more characteristic of us here today, we had worked so hard at our religion, labored with all our energy to attain goodness - to do good and be good in order that we might be accepted only to find that disappointing cul-de-sac.

We discovered how utterly frustrating it is to seek righteousness in our own strength, and to even think that 10 we’ll ever be worthy of God’s salvation — so in desperation we sought to touch Jesus, and found in that touch the strength and healing, and forgiveness, and acceptance we so desperately needed.

Let those who self-righteously look down their noses on those who witness deliverance at a time of desperation. Think with a clearer mind and a more sensitive heart of their own condition. Let them be scathingly honest as to where they might be but for the grace of God. I think of the Reverend Henry F. Lyte the composer of the immortal hymn, “Abide With Me.” At the zenith of a brilliant career he was confronted with a prognosis that he had only a matter of weeks to live. The diagnosis was that he was in the grip of fatal consumption — that’s what they called tuberculosis then. What did he do? He returned home, went into his study, looked death squarely in the face, and then sat down to write those brave and beautiful words:

I fear no foe…at hand to bless,
Ills have no weight tears no bitterness;
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still if Thou abide with me.

There’s one line in that hymn, that says it all for the Christian: “When other helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, O abide with me.”

The woman in our story is desperate, and she came to the “Help of the helpless.”

Let’s go on a little side path. We’ll come back to Jesus, but look at him now as Mark captures the very moment the woman exercises her desperate faith. Let’s read verses 28-30 again.

“For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.” And immediately the hemorrhage ceased; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him, immediately turned about in the crowd, and said, “Who touched my garments?”

The line to focus on is verse 30: “perceiving Him that power had gone forth from Him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?”

Every time Jesus healed, it took something out of Him. But, ah, this was his greatness. He was prepared to pay the price for loving and caring for others. That price was the outgoing of his very life. We know the extent of that, only as we look at that cross on cruel Golgotha, and the last drops of life blood for you and me.

The point is — love is costly. We know that, don’t we? Some know it more deeply than others. There is a woman in this congregation with whom I’ve wept during the past few weeks. A single parent - whose heart even now is breaking out of love for a daughter who is caught in the cruel tenacious clutches of drugs. I’ve said it before. Parents are as happy as their most hurting child. That’s a generality, of course, and not an unquestioned truth, but the truth is there — and parents know it, I think, more than anyone else. It costs to love. It costs to be in a ministry of caring. We can minister to others without something going out from us. We can’t stay aloof. Our hands are going to get dirty and our heads are going to hurt.

II

Let’s move now to Jairus.

He is desperate, too. His little daughter was ill to the point of death. But, unlike the woman, he made a deliberate faith decision. She had come spontaneously. Jairus was more deliberate in his coming. There is a sense in which his was a more dramatic move because of the risk he took, and the extremes to which he went. This also teaches us about faith.

Remember now that Jairus was “one of the rulers of the synagogue.” This put him in a position of having to support the rigid rules and regulations and defend the hidebound doctrine of the Law. This would have certainly put him in opposition to Jesus. But he was desperate. His daughter was gravely ill, so he made a deliberate decision.

“Here we enter the realm of speculation, but it seems to me that we can say of this man that , to the end, they objected to him calling in this Jesus. It is rather strange that He came himself and did not leave his daughter when she was on the point of death maybe he came because n one else would go.” (Barclay, The Gospel of Mark pp. 126-127).

This is a good point on which to focus as we look at Jairus.

The suggestion that he had to go against his friends’ advice is confirmed in the continuation of the scripture lesson — the portion we didn’t read. We stopped our reading at verse 34, with Jesus’ announcement to the woman, “Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace and be healed of your disease.” The rest of the scripture says that while Jesus was yet speaking to the woman, persons from Jairus’ house, came to deliver the news that the daughter was dead and that Jairus should not trouble Jesus any more.

There are two truths to note here. One, there are always going to be prophets of doom who interrupt our life, who delight in giving us bad news, who want to divert us in our faith. So, don’t forget that. When you are setting your face steadfastly in some high and holy endeavor, there are going to be those who will seek to divert you, to turn your head in another direction

So we must brace ourselves against prophets of doom.

But the second thing to note here is that these prophets of doom illustrate a type of inadequate faith: “Why trouble the Master any further?” they ask.

Pay attention to this. The faith of others — or the lack of faith – can have a significant impact on us. And many of us fall into the category of these friends of Jairus. We don’t have a clear vision of what Christ can do. We’d like to call it realism, but it’s really a lack of faith. We are always calculating on the basis of observable human resources. We give up too soon! We don’t open our minds and hearts to the immense possibilities of Another who has the last word. When we do this, we not only bog down ourselves, we drag others down with us.

Jesus disregarded this word about the daughter being dead, and that there was no use for him to go on. He pressed on to Jairus’ house. When He got there, the house was full of people and they were weeping and wailing in great tumult. Jesus said to them, “Why do you make a tumult and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.”

And do you know what they did? It’s right there in the scripture. They laughed at Him. Then do you know what Jesus did? The scripture says, “He put them all outside.” I wonder how He did that? Did He do it with a kind of indignation?— Did His anger approach that which He demonstrated in the temple when He ran the money-changers out of that sacred place? They had no faith, and Jesus didn’t want them around. So He got them out of the house. And He took Jairbis and wife, the mother and father of this little child, and they went to the room where the child was. Here we come to a very tender moment. The scripture says that He took the little girl by the hand and said to her, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”

The rest of the story is there in the record. The little girl got up and everyone was overcome with amazement.

We’ve said that the faith of the woman in this story as well as the faith of Jairus was desperate. Even so, I find no more vivid pictures of faith in the whole Bible.

We need to keep on looking at these two people – People whose faith brings healing to themselves and healing to others

I need to close now, and I want to close with that image suggested in that tender moment in the little girl’s bedroom. Jesus took her by the hand. Add to that the fact that the woman in our story, in an act of desperate but magnificent faith, reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’ garment. The little girl was the recipient of the faith of others, but the image here is for us Jesus will take us by the hand.