Life's a gamble

At the supermarket last week I stood in line behind a young man. I noticed a tattoo on his hand and asked him what it said. He pulled up his sleeve and showed me the phrase: “Life is a gamble.” As we continued to talk he shared with me that he had recently gotten a tattoo for a young friend who had died.

This young man and his tattoo stayed on my mind for days after our conversation. Life is a gamble.

To gamble is to play a game of chance for something of value, or to take a risky action in the hope of a desired result.

When people buy a lottery ticket they are putting their cash and hopes into something where the outcome is governed by chance. They are playing a game of chance for something of great value. A game with high life-changing stakes involved, the possibility of winning a prize that is unearned but highly desired.

So, if life is a gamble, then what is at stake? If life is a gamble, what prize is hoped for? If life is a gamble, who is in control of the outcome?

In our Gospel passage today we hear about people gambling. Jesus has been nailed to a cross next to two criminals. The soldiers who put him on the cross cast lots in order to decide who will get his robe.

They knew this seamless robe was of high value so they didn’t want to cut the fabric into pieces and share the material equally between everyone. Instead they would rather gamble over it and let chance decide who would get the valuable robe and who would lose out.

We, the reader of the Gospel, are not told who wins Jesus’ robe. We don’t find out who chance or luck favoured on that day.

But as I read the Gospel passage and as I thought about the statement tattooed to the young mans hand: “Life is a Gamble”, I started thinking about the questions I mentioned earlier. If Life is a Gamble, then what is at stake? If life is a gamble, what prize is hoped for? And, if life is a gamble, who is in control of the outcome?

1) If Life is a Gamble, What is at stake?

For God, it is us humans who are at stake. The Bible tells us that we are the sheep of God’s pasture. Created in His image, to live in relationship with Him and to look after and enjoy the world that He created.

But then sin entered the world and tainted the relationship between God and his people. God’s people were held bondage under the power of darkness. Sin separates us from a Holy God. It causes the cruel and harmful deeds that humans carry out in this world; the political corruption that affects countless lives, the wars that take the lives of civilians and soldiers and leave survivors with physical and emotional trauma.

Despite our bondage to sin, we are precious in God’s sight. And He does not want any of us to remain under the power of darkness. So, for God, the stakes are high. God doesn’t want us to suffer what our sins and actions deserve. He sees us as being valuable enough for him to enter the world and rescue us from darkness into His Kingdom of light.

2) If Life is a Gamble, What is the prize?

Reconciliation with God, the Father and the forgiveness of our sins. Those soldiers who were playing a lottery for Jesus’ clothing did not realise the significance of what they were doing.

While they gambled to decide who would get Jesus’ robe, they did not realise that it wasn’t his physical covering they were all in need of. It was his spiritual covering.

They didn’t need to be clothed in his robe, they needed to be clothed in His Righteousness in order to enter the Kingdom of God.

That was something recognised by one of the criminals being crucified next to Jesus. He understood that he and the other criminal on the cross were getting what they deserved for the things they had done. He also recognised that Jesus had done nothing wrong and yet was suffering the same fate.

Jesus offers this criminal a prize he did not deserve. He would be with Jesus in Paradise. He would have his sins forgiven. He would be clothed in Jesus’ righteousness instead of his own shortcomings and sinful deeds. God’s grace is the undeserved prize.

3) If Life is a Gamble, Who is in control of the outcome?

In the book of Proverbs one verse says: “The lot is cast into the lap but it’s every decision is from the Lord.”

This verse reminds us that God is in control. Even in today’s Gospel passage as Jesus is crucified on the cross, God is in control. Despite what they may have believed, it wasn’t the soldiers who placed Jesus on the cross, it wasn’t the religious leaders, it was not Judas’ betrayal. This was always part of God’s plan to win back his people from the powers of darkness, from the control of sin.

God sent Jesus to save us. It was God who sent Him to the cross. Jesus was not there in Jerusalem by chance. He had been prophesied about for centuries before he rode there on a donkey. Jesus had headed to Jerusalem to be crowned with thorns. And, though the people intended to mock him by labelling him King of the Jews, this crucifixion was actually His coronation ceremony.

This is Christ the King, the chosen one of God, who was to be the stake. He was the valued prize (the only begotten Son) that God sent to the world and the people that He loved in order to make peace through the blood of his cross. And so Jesus could pray confidently for us from the cross: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” He knew that God was in control of the outcome and would raise Him from the dead as Saviour and Lord of all.

So answering my supermarket friend’s tattoo today we might say, If life is a gamble then the odds are fixed. God is in control of the outcome and He is victorious.

We can be encouraged by the Psalmist that we don’t have to fear when chaos is all around us, when the kingdoms of this world are shaken, when the cost of living crisis hits us and when all seems dark. We can be still and know that He is God. That He is King above all kings and kingdoms. And He invites us to claim the ultimate prize of salvation, forgiveness and hope.

So this morning, Father God, we exalt you as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We acknowledge that you are in control and that nothing is left to chance. We are sorry for the times that we don’t recognise the incredible price that you paid to rescue us from the kingdom of darkness and transfer us into the kingdom of your beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

Thank you for your forgiveness and your grace. We pray for all those who feel hopeless in their lives, for all those who don’t yet know you as their God and Father.

Please help us to share the Good News of your kingdom to everyone we encounter in our lives.

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.