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"Now you see it; now you don't. Now you see it again!" Perhaps you have heard a magician say that, appearing to make something, say, a pigeon or even a person, disappear or reappear before your very eyes, apparently proving the magician's maxim, "the hand is quicker than the eye".
The magician's hand, that is, is quicker than the untrained eye of the beholder. Or so it appears. I say "appears" because it is all an illusion. And the magician, alas, is but an illusionist. He only appears to make things disappear and reappear. The hand only appears to be quicker than the eye or is so only in an illusory way. And then only with fallible humans, never with God.
God is not fooled, not for one moment. His eye sees everything. Nothing escapes the all-seeing eye of God. Especially sin. Would we could make our sins go away as easily as a magician appears to make things go away. But we can't. And if we think we can, it is only an illusion. We are the only ones fooled. God certainly isn't.
Remember, His eye sees everything. Nothing escapes God's all-seeing eye. Certainly not our sins or our sinful efforts to conceal them. Even when we think we have succeeded in making our sins go away, plus the guilt that goes along with sinning--even when we succeed in fooling ourselves--presto! They reappear by way of the master magicians, the devil, our sinful flesh and the sinful world, and their black arts. Now you see it; now you don't; now you see it again!
That is because they only appeared to vanish. Their vanishing act is only an illusion. They are really there all along--hidden maybe; masked, disguised or camouflaged, but there all the same. Our sinful flesh, the sinful world and the devil--and the sin, death and hell they conjure--are not so easily conjured away.
That is because they are no illusion but the real thing. And because of them, we are dead in trespasses and sin--really dead not just figuratively, not just playing dead. This is no magic show. "Pluck your magic twanger, Froggie!" Now you see it; now you don't!
On the other hand, because we really are dead not just pretending, the things we believe are real, the things we think and feel and say and do, the things we believe and trust and will, the things we value, insofar as they are conjured up by this diabolical trio--Satan, our fleshly nature and the natural world--only appear to have significance. In reality, they are nothing.
Really they are less than nothing, insofar as the wickedness they in turn conjure up is concerned. And when we die, the things so conjured die with us. When we disappear, they disappear with us, never to reappear, if it depended on our black arts. Even human wisdom, like the apocryphal Book of Wisdom, sees this. Talk about your vanishing acts!
"All those things have vanished like a shadow, and like a rumor that passes by; like a ship that sails through the billowy water, and when it has passed no trace can be found, nor track of its keel in the waves.
"Or as when a bird flies through the air, no evidence of its passage is found; the light air, lashed by the beat of its pinions and pierced by the force of its rushing flight, is traversed by the movement of its wings, and afterward no sign of its coming is found there. Or as, when an arrow is shot at a target, the air, thus divided, comes together at once, so that no one knows its pathway.
"So we also, as soon as we were born, ceased to be," insofar as we are stillborn, born dead in trespasses and sin. "And we had no sign of virtue to show, but were consumed in our wickedness. Because the hope of the ungodly man is like chaff carried by the wind, and like a light hoarfrost driven away by a storm. It is dispersed like smoke before the wind, and it passes like the remembrance of a guest who stays but a day" (Wisdom 5:9ff).
So, since you cannot be done with sin--not as long as you are in the world, in the body of this sinful flesh, in the hands of the devil--be done with makebelieve and masks and the airy spirits who inhabit both, masquerading as righteous when you are not, pretending to be alive when you are in the throes of death. Be done with all such death-dealing snares as human wisdom can contrive.
"See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ" (Col 2:8ff). No, not according to Christ. Never be done with Him. Because He is never done with you!
He is the Real Thing. "For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." He alone can chase these ghosts away. With Him the devil doesn't stand a ghost of a chance! Neither does the sinful world nor our sinful flesh--nor the sins and the death this trio of diabolical magicians conjure. Now you see them; now you don't!
By His Spirit our Savior spirits them away. Though He appears to have gone away He is with us still. And though we do go away in death, through faith in His name we will reappear with Him in glory when this sinful world and our sinful flesh and death and the devil are no more. Talk about a vanishing act! Now you see them; now you don't!
But you, "you have come to fullness of life in [Jesus], who is the head of all rule and authority. And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ" who is "the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God."
What do you know? The hand is quicker than the eye after all, when that hand is God's and we are in His hand quickened by Him. But the hand is not quicker than the eye, not even when it is God's hand, when the eye is God's. Thankfully, that all-seeing eye is on us for good--for our good! Amen.
- Pastor Erickson