Inspiration for me often comes from unexpected sources. Despite the fact I have never gambled in my life, the expression playing with house money kept flashing through my mind this past Easter Sunday when hearing David’s sermon on the resurrection.
Playing with house money is a gambler’s term that means that you won enough money from the “house” (or casino) that you can use only these winnings for your future bets. In other words, when you are playing with house money, you have nothing to lose.
Alister McGrath puts it like this:
And so with us now. In on sense, victory has not come; in another it has. The resurrection declares in advance of the event God’s total victory over all evil and oppressive forces – such as death, evil, and sin. Their backbone has been broken, and we may begin to live now in the light of that victory, knowing the long night of their oppression will end.
As believers in Jesus Christ, we are playing with house money — even if we lose everything else when walking this earth, we’ve still won. That’s the power of the resurrection. Is there anything more liberating?
