I knew a man years ago, a preacher and excellent minister, who was also a magician. He enjoyed performing illusions. And he made no pretense that they weren’t illusions. He was not calling on occultic powers, just sleight of hand.
But I remember one time watching him do a trick that made no sense to me. Not just that I didn’t understand how he did it, I didn’t understand why he did it. If a magician pours milk into a tube and it doesn’t come out the other end, I may not know how he did it, but I understand what the trick is: where’d the milk go? But this trick he did, it was apparently a hit among other magicians, but myself and the audience that day of non-magicians, we were just left going, “Huh?”
We’ve been, for the last two weeks, reading about Jesus’s encounter with a Samaritan woman. Now, he could have jumped right in and said, “I am the Messiah”, which was the truth, and I think she would have gone, “Huh?” He instead, knowing her heart, built her up to the realization that he was a prophet. And then …
Sunday morning at 10:30.
(Sunday School this week at 9 a.m. We'll be in the 46th chapter of Genesis.)
