Magical thinking

Like many other people in the 45 U.S. states in which the game is played, this writer bought Mega Millions tickets earlier this month, hoping to win $1.35 billion.

I bought a grand total of two tickets, telling the cashier at my local Jackson supermarket yours truly had no expectation of winning.

In fact, the odds of winning are so infinitesimal, buying such tickets must be regarded as no more than a lark.

According to game officials, to win the top prize by selecting all six correct numbers, the odds of success were 303 million to one.

To give some context to the enormity of the challenge, the chance of being struck by lightning in any given year is roughly one in a million.

Putting those two data points together, hitting the Mega Millions jackpot is 300 times less likely than being struck by a bolt from the hand of mythological Zeus.

"I have no expectation of winning. I'm just doing my part as a citizen by participating," I told the young woman who handed over the $2 tickets.

She wasn't buying my reasoning.

"You don't think you have a chance at winning?" she queried with an unmistakable look of skepticism on her face.

Standing at the counter, I reflected on my motivation.

Logic dictates winning is virtually impossible -- emphasis on the word "virtually."

A chance

I had to admit in the recesses of my mind is a thought shared by every person who ponies up greenbacks for a lottery ticket.

To wit: I might win. Probably not, but who knows?

Magical thinking

Allowing myself to entertain the thought of overcoming such long odds is a perhaps unacknowledged embrace of magic, of superstition.

There is no doubt playing the state lottery is magical thinking. We cast our hopes into a machine, hoping against hope, that a windfall will be the result.

If we were engaged in a debate, the last two sentences are unchallenged and must be stipulated as accurate.

Some might ask what the essential difference is, then, between hoping for a successful result in a lottery play and a prayer of petition.

When we pray, are we not casting our hopes upon an unseen God?

The difference

With all due respect, playing the lottery and praying for yourself or someone else are not the same at all.

For a person of Christian faith, hope is lodged not in an impersonal machine, but in a person, Jesus of Nazareth, in whose person and work hope was made incarnate, made real.

No credible historian denies a young man from a backwater village in Galilee, Israel, lived and died in the first century A.D.

Along the way, he taught, healed, performed miracles and was finally executed by order of the government.

A fair historian will stipulate the accuracy of these sentences.

What is taken on faith is Jesus was raised from the dead.

Because he was resurrected, we have hope for life after physical death.

Yes, it's a hope but consider this.

If He was not raised, why was his body never found?

If He was not raised, why did 11 of his closest followers refuse to renounce Him, paying for their steadfast conviction with their own lives?

If He was not raised, why do uncounted millions daily call upon God for comfort, strength, and yes, healing?

I'll gamble my eternal future on Jesus, the man for others.

This is a bet I'll place gladly.