Against All Odds
March 27, 2026The Resurrection is the unlikeliest yet most certain event in history.
Did you fill out a March Madness bracket?
If you did, you’re in good company. The NCAA estimates that between 60 and 100 million people filled out brackets predicting winners and losers in the men’s college basketball tournament. More than 26.5 million of them were submitted just on ESPN alone. And do you know how many of those tens of millions of brackets will turn out to have perfectly predicted the result of every game?
Zero. None this year, and none ever.
No verified perfect bracket has ever survived the full men’s NCAA tournament. The odds of a flawless 63-game bracket are astronomically small—something like 1 in 9.2 quintillion for a bracket filled out randomly. To put that number in perspective, there are 7.5 quintillion grains of sand on the entire earth. If I were to travel somewhere in the world, without telling you where, and secretly select a particular grain of sand, your odds of guessing exactly which one I had chosen out of all the world’s deserts and beaches and sand dunes would be better than your odds of filling out a perfect bracket.
Even for educated fans who aren’t just filling in random winners, odds of success are basically nonexistent. A reasonably informed picker has a 1 in 120.2 billion chance of an error-free bracket. That’s like correctly picking one particular second out of a span of 3,800 years. It’s impossible.
The reason for the long odds is that college basketball teams sometimes don’t perform the way people expect them to, and you never know when the unexpected is going to happen. Teams that are heavily favored end up losing to underdogs. A game is unexpectedly won on a last-second buzzer-beater. A key player goes down with an injury. It happens every year. In 2026, out of tens of millions of brackets, not a single one survived past the opening weekend of the tournament. Even with massive participation, the math always wins.
Most years, the month of March is taken up not only with basketball games and busted brackets but with the weeks leading up to Easter. Many Christians are observing Lent during these weeks, taking extra time for fasting and prayer and personal sacrifice. But even those of us whose denominations don’t observe Lent can appreciate the sacredness of these weeks as we prepare to celebrate the single most statistically improbable—and yet the most prophetically inevitable—event in history.
One of the things that’s amazing about the Easter accounts in the Gospels is how surprised Jesus’s disciples were when events that had been foretold centuries earlier came to pass. Passages like Psalm 16 and Isaiah 53 pointed clearly to the Messiah’s suffering and ultimate victory over death. Hosea 6:2 and Jonah 1:17 foreshadowed the three days Jesus would be in his temporary grave. And many other passages provided thematic patterns that found their fulfillment in Jesus’s resurrection.
One person who was not surprised in the least was Jesus himself. He knew and even stated plainly that he was going to die and rise again on the third day in fulfillment of the ancient Scriptures. And it is because of that fulfillment that we enjoy the hope of the Resurrection today.
Good Friday is just a week away. In these final days of March, instead of mourning the early demise of our March Madness brackets, let’s thank God for the certainty of Christ’s resurrection, prophesied against all odds yet absolutely certain, and for the hope of eternal life that Christ’s followers throughout the centuries have clung to in confidence as a result.
Here’s what’s happening.
New Format for the THF Weekly Briefing
You may or may not notice anything different about the THF Weekly Briefing email this week, but we’ve moved to a new email server in order to make subscription easier for new readers. (This also means unsubscribing is easier and more anonymous, but obviously you wouldn’t want to do that!) The THF Weekly Briefing is intended to provide a window into current events and missiological trends through the lens of Tyndale’s international partner networks. The Weekly Briefing started as a way to keep Tyndale employees informed about and engaged with THF partners, but it has grown to be more of a global ministry update, reaching and informing readers in many countries around the world. The new server should make it easier to share this resource with others, as anyone can now subscribe just by clicking the link at the bottom of the email. We hope to grow our audience so that we can inform and be informed by a growing number of prayer and ministry partners, so please do share the THF Weekly Briefing emails with others and invite them to subscribe.
Broadcasting Hope in a Blackout
When widespread anti-government demonstrations broke out in Iran in late 2025, the government moved quickly to restrict communications inside the country. On January 8, 2026, an internet blackout was imposed as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps began violently cracking down on protesters. Mobile networks were throttled, and satellite signals were intermittently jammed as well. On February 28, after the onset of US and Israeli strikes, the Iranian government further intensified the blackout. Meanwhile, ministry organizations, including several THF partners operating in the region, were ramping up their efforts to get supplies and information into Iran. One of those organizations is SAT-7, a media ministry broadcasting Christian programming to millions of viewers across the Middle East and North Africa via satellite television and digital platforms. Although SAT-7’s main satellite access was disrupted in late February, the organization quickly switched to a new provider and restored broadcasting into Iran with almost no downtime. With the internet still shut down, satellite TV is a lifeline, and SAT-7’s constant message of hope amidst the ongoing crisis gives Iranian viewers a steady source of gospel content. Please pray for an end to the conflict in Iran, for freedom for the Iranian people after decades of oppression, and for SAT-7 and other THF partners working to share the light of Christ in the darkness of war.
Remembering “America’s Tough Guy”
You’ve seen the memes. You know the legend. But did you know Chuck Norris was a committed believer and a Tyndale author? In the mid-2000s, between the collapse of the dot-com bubble and the advent of social media, “Chuck Norris facts” transformed the Walker, Texas Ranger star into a larger-than-life internet myth. Absurd, deadpan one-liners like “Chuck Norris doesn’t do push-ups; he pushes the earth down” and “Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door,” delivered with complete seriousness, became a meme template just as internet memes were entering popular culture. But Chuck Norris was more than a legendary tough guy; in his early thirties, he committed his life to Christ and spent the next five decades of his career as an outspoken advocate of the Christian faith. In 2009, Tyndale published The Official Chuck Norris Fact Book, a collection of some of Chuck’s favorite “facts” and his reflections about them. In the book, he made clear how much more important his faith was than his celebrity status and acknowledged that while the internet “facts” were fun, it was Christ, not memes, that defined his true identity. Chuck died on March 19, 2026, at age 86, reminding us that even legends are human. But his legacy as a cultural icon and, much more important, as a follower of Jesus will endure.
Sports Ministry in Tajikistan
In December of 2025, Tyndale House Foundation gave a significant grant to an organization engaged in sports ministry in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan. With over 90 percent of its land covered by mountains, Tajikistan is home to 10.3 million people. About half the population is under the age of 20, and almost three-quarters live outside urban centers. And as a predominantly Muslim country (95%), Tajikistan is a place where evangelistic outreach is tricky at best and dangerous at worst. These factors combine to make sports ministry a highly strategic and effective way to reach Tajik people with the gospel. Why? Because sports are an invitational and unifying part of culture, especially among young people. A few months after the grant was awarded, we received several handwritten thank-you notes from staff members. I think you’ll be encouraged by these excerpts:
- “Even though we are far apart geographically, you have become true partners with us in the work of God’s kingdom.”
- “Your prayers have been a source of comfort and strength to us.”
- “Despite the fact that you do not know us personally, you willingly extended a helping hand and have become true family and fellow laborers in God’s work.”
- “May the Lord abundantly bless each of you for your kindness, strengthen your homes, and fill your hearts with peace and joy.”
Please pray for bold witness, protection from persecution, and strong knees and backs for these sports-ministry partners in Tajikistan.
That’s it for this week’s briefing. Please send any questions, comments, and busted March Madness brackets to [email protected]. Do you enjoy reading the THF Weekly Briefing? Make sure you’re subscribed to the email distribution list to get access to this resource the same day it’s published each week, and feel free to share it with others who may be interested. Thanks for continuing to pray for and support our partners around the world.
Jeremy Taylor
President | Tyndale House Foundation
The THF Weekly Briefing provides information about significant events happening in the wide universe of Tyndale House Foundation partner organizations as well as an occasional peek behind the scenes of THF’s operations. It is available to anyone who’s interested in learning more about Tyndale’s philanthropic commitments, partners, and operations. Was this email forwarded to you? Contact [email protected] to be added to (or removed from) the distribution list.