What are the Odds?

March 23, 2014

In the world of college basketball, we are now in “March Madness.”  This is when the best basketball teams in the country compete to be the national champion.  These teams are “seeded” in a bracket that many people use to predict who the champion will be.

This year the ritual of picking the champion is receiving a lot of publicity as billionaire Warren Buffet and a business interest have put up a one billion dollar prize for the person who correctly predicts the outcome of every game in the tournament.  One small catch … The odds of correctly predicting the tournament are 1 in 9.2 quintillion.  That’s 1 in 9,200,000,000,000,000,000. 

So the good news is that you have a chance.  The reality is the odds are “slim and none.”

What do you think the odds makers would list the chances of a camel fitting through the eye of a needle?  My hunch is that they would be even higher than 1 in 9.2 quintillion!  

Yet Jesus says in Mark 10:25:   "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!  It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."   This shocked the disciples and probably disheartened them as they gave up their lives, families, jobs   and homes to follow him.

That doesn’t bode well for any of us here today either.  We are all certainly rich by global standards.  And even in our most devout moments, I hardly think we would out-disciple the original disciples by much (I’d hope we pass up Judas!).

So what should we do… give up?  Sigh at the long odds and play the game?  Scripture says the disciples, “were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’"  That’s a good question if the odds are so high!

 Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible” (Mark 10:27). 

For God all things are possible.  Now I like those odds!  Perhaps Kingdom life is not just about hustle and effort and even luck.  Perhaps it is relying on the love and grace of God… for whom “all things are possible.”  May God bless you and provide just what you need… today and every day… even to entrance in the God’s kingdom through faith in Christ!