Illusions and Magic

Floating women, disappearing statues, ladies turning into tigers. I can't help but aaahhhhh. No matter how many times I've seen a woman cut in half and put back together, how many times something huge has disappeared, a woman has turned into a tiger, "levitated" or bullets have been caught in mid-air, I can't help but oooohhhhh and ahhh when I see it happen. It looks s real that often times I have to remind my mind that its not real, it can't be. I loved watching those magic revealed shows with the illusionist wearing the ugly Robin Williams frog prince mask, because they showed the secrets to countless "extraordinary" illusions. I was amazed, because often times the most practical way to make the illusion work was the actual way it worked. A woman can't float by herself, there must be a forklift picking her up or something, and sure enough, behind that curtain, there's the forklift.

Yet still I'm amazed and impressed to watch. The tricks, which are very much tricks, look soooooo real that it makes you wonder, for even just the slightest moment, if maybe just maybe what my eyes saw was really real. For a brief moment, I want to believe. But in the end, its just a trick, often executed with mirrors, lights, or "assistants" meant to distract our attention from what's really going on by their beauty and their clothing. These tricks, while mostly for entertainment, are ultimately meant to deceive the eyes and senses, for however short a time they can, in order to make us believe in magic.
I watched a movie I really like today, a movie about an illusionist who was really good at his job, making believe believe that strange things can happen. At one point during the movie, creatively called The Illusionist, the title character is told to tell the crowd that everything people have seen at his show was simply to entertain, and isn't real, it's all just been an illusion. When I watched this for the first time, I found myself not really believing in what he was saying. I had never seen those tricks he performed before, and it didn't seem possible to be fake. He makes an orange tree grow in a matter of seconds, makes mirror images do unexplainable things, sticks a sword to the ground so that no one but he can lift it up, brings dead guys on to the stage to have a conversation, makes himself vanish, and in the end a dead girl is found to be alive. What he does is pretty cool, and makes you wonder why the movie is called The Illusionist and not The Magician.

But, when you reach the end, the tricks are explained, and truly we find the title to be appropriate. All his elaborate tricks are in fact illusions, not real, tricks. Even the most complicated trick, bringing a woman back from the dead, is explained ala a Romeo and Juliet trick that works much better in this movie than it did for Juliet and her Romeo. Once you see the end, you feel foolish for believing that these tricks are real, because they really can't happen in life.

Or can they? Some time ago there was a man who wandered around the countryside doing amazing things. He brought the dead back to life, made sicknesses and diseases disappear, made the lame walk, gave sight to the blind, kept the party going by turning water into wine, and even brought the dead to life. Wow what wonderful tricks. Except they're not, what this man did was the real thing, no strings or pulleys, no smoke and mirrors and lights, no trap doors, it was all real. He did extraordinary things, things you might even dare to call magic. One of the dictionary definitions describes magic as any extraordinary or mystical influence, charm or power. What Jesus did was beyond ordinary, it was extraordinary.

John set out to show this with his gospel of Jesus. He wrote about very few of the miracles of Jesus. Actually when compared to the other gospels there are many things not written in his version. Is there a reason for this? Of course, and the reason is best given with John's own words in John 20:30, "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." John only included the extraordinary miracles in his gospel because he only wanted to show the miracles, the signs, the doings that proved Jesus to be the Son of God.

No one else but God could have healed a man lame for 38 years, or a man born blind. One of the tricks with illusionists is to place helpers in the crowd to help them with their tricks, tying the right knots, avoiding certain areas of the stage, pretending all sorts of things. Its very possible that people in Jesus' time did the same thing, having a wonderful actor pretend to be lame and then miraculously walk again, have a man pretend to be blind and then miraculously restore his sight. But Jesus didn't do these things. A man lame for 38 years would be known for his disability, just as grumpy people are known for being grumpy, happy as happy, sneezy as sneezy and dopey as dopey. People would have known this man and his affliction, and the same goes with a man born blind, he was known around town, probably known as the blind guy or something like that. Many people either knew these men or knew of them, so when John speaks of Jesus healing them, he's showing that this right here is a genuine miracle, a man of extraordinary power.

The same happens when John speaks of Jesus' bringing Lazarus back to life, only God could bring a man back who'd been dead three days. There's no accidental misdiagnosis after three days, there's no holding your breath that long, no potion to take to make the body go into a slumber that looks like death (from Romeo and Illusionist), dead is dead. Yet Jesus brought him back to life. Only the Son of God could do these extraordinary things, these instances of real magic as opposed to sheer illusion and trickery. John writes so you'll read these amazing acts and believe in your heart that only God has such power, only God could do something so......magical.

All the greatest illusionists in the world, when faced with reality, when confronted by magic's greatest secrets revealed and the masked magician and now us the audience(I bet they watched the show and thought to themselves darn I guess I can't do that trick anymore, they'll all know I use a forklift) know that all they work on and all they do on stage is distract and trick to entertain. These people know, just as we do, that what they do is not real. So watch closely, its all an illusion. The man in the movie was telling the truth when he admitted himself to be an illusionist, even though what he did seemed real. They trick, deceive, work hard to make us believe in the impossible (if even for a few minutes or seconds). BUT..........Jesus is real, and what Jesus did is real, he's no illusionist, no faker, no deceiver, doesn't even use women to distract our eyes and minds, he did the impossible and does the impossible, He lives today. Believe it, believe in extraordinary power (aka magic), believe in Jesus, who made the impossible possible because He is the Son of God.
BLT says.......there is magic to be found in power of God, believe it and believe in Him.