wearing the crown

I was back at the school today again. An upper school assembly at the outset of the day.

An assembly with a difference, mind. And, well, yes mind was very much the essence of it all.

It was, in effect, a large scale sort of mind-game more than anything else. A couple of folk from a group called 'Mind Laboratory' (or something like that) who use games to help stretch children's minds. Very educational, I guess.

So they basically just played this game. Two teams - the two of them on the one team, all of the children on the other: a straightforward game with simple rules. And the claim from the two who were teaching the game that they would definitely win.

Which, of course, they did!

So the children wanted to find out how. This was the bit that starts to stretch their minds. And, sure enough, before too long the children had all cracked it.

Now I'll probably get into trouble for letting you in on the 'secret'. But, hey, I'll run that risk! Because it's not so much a secret as just pure old common sense. And there were things about the game which got me thinking on entirely different lines.

So here's the game.

Twelve objects on a line (the last on the line, on the right hand end, is a crown).

Two teams compete and take it in turns to remove, from the left, either one or two of the objects each shot (the team gets to choose whether it's one or two they remove).

The team removing the crown at the end of the line - well, they're the ones who win.

Not that hugely complicated. The children understood it right away.

Okay, said the MindLab folk, being ever so gracious and good: you guys start. What child is going to protest at that? So off the children go and, like I say, the MindLab folk they win the game hands down.

And the next game.

And the next.

And then they relent and start to give clues as to where the 'secret' lies. And soon the children have twigged. And once they've cracked the 'secret' (which is really common sense - that's why they say it's a mind game) then it's they who start to win.

The key (of course) is in the number three. Twelve objects. And three's the crucial number.

Your opponent starts (how very gracious of you!). If he or she decides to take away one object, you choose two. If he or she removes not one but two, you then choose just one.

Make it up to three each shot. Go on like that throughout the game - and two turns down the line you win. Always. Guaranteed.

It got me thinking down another line, as I say. The interplay there is between these numbers, three and twelve, in so much truth.

The twelve sons of Jacob. The twelve tribes of Israel. The twelve friends of Jesus. The twelve hours of daylight. The twelve months of the year.

And then this number three. Three persons in the Godhead. Three crosses on Golgotha. Three days in the darkness of the tomb. Three marks of Christian living (faith and hope and love). Three.

There is, it sometimes seems, a certain sort of mathematic 'magic' which lies at the heart of the world in which we live. Crack the simple 'secret' and you get to win the crown.

It is exactly that in which I'm day by day involved. Except it's not so much a Mind Laboratory as a Soul Laboratory sort of thing I do. Stretching the mind to some extent, but more than that, expanding people's souls.

Helping them see these very simple strategies by which alone we live. Once you see it, it's simple!

There's nothing that hard about living our lives on the back of the 'three' and ending each sequence of twelve daylight hours with the crown of Christ's victory ours.

Every day. Every year. The victory given to us.

At the end I wanted to rush to the front and tell them that I do the same! Except what I'm about is no sort of game. It's life itself I'm about.

I didn't, of course! I didn't want to steal another's thunder.

But I thought it!

And as we were all departing the hall, one of the girls from the P5 class came up and asked if I'd like her to read from the Scriptures again in one of our Sunday services. She was the one that I'd asked before and plainly the girl was just head-over-heels thrilled to bits.

It made me just appreciate the more that what I really long to see, in all of them, these children here in school, I long to see them each and every one discovering for themselves how theirs can be the crown of life, each day, each year, throughout their lives.

I long to see them living by that faith and hope and love. I long to see them coming to a knowledge of almighty God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I long to see them rooting all their living in the death and then as well the mighty resurrection of the Lord.

The lunchtime service is something of a contrast to all that, of course. Mainly folk at the other end of life's short spectrum.

But no less a pleasure to see them all out and to share in this time of worship again. I really do enjoy these times. And I think I'm not alone!

A chance to praise the Lord, to hear his word and stretch our minds, to meet with friends and have some food: I mean, that's got to be good! It's a brilliant sort of 'staging post' in the middle of the week.

Most of the folk who come, I say, are getting on in years. A contrast to the children I was seeing early on.

So it seemed there was a certain apt completeness to my day when evening saw me spending time again with a couple in the middle years of life. The young and the old and then the middle-aged.

A couple exploring the faith. Eager to know the Lord.

The stage between the open, warm naivety of children in the school and the settled, clear convictions of the older folk at lunch. Out on the seas of adventure and learning to live Christ's life.

Three separate groups of people. Three different stages of growth. And I love being with them all.

Three. And I'm wanting them all to be learning to wear the crown!