Confused By Our Own Illusions

So often people spend their time trying to figure out God. We see bad things happening all around us and good things happening to bad people and we wonder how fairness and human logic come into play on while God is in charge of things. In The Illusionist, Paul Giamatti plays an inspector who is fascinated with a magician, played by Edward Norton. Throughout the movie, despite criminal charges against the Great Eisenheim (Norton), Inspector Uhl (Giamatti) continually struggles with trying to figure out how he does his tricks. It begins with an orange tree that seemingly grows before your very eyes, and it progresses to the appearance of Eisenheim seemingly conjuring spirits from the dead. A major plot of the movie is about Uhl furiously trying to learn his secrets, but unwilling to affirm his abilities. How often do we try to figure out God on our terms without giving Him the benefit of the doubt that even if He told us we might not understand?

Eisenheim's love interest is Sophie (Jessica Biel), who happens to be of high social standing and is engaged to the prince. After being forbidden to be together as youths, Eisenheim travels the world, where he learns his tricks, and returns to reclaim his love. Sophie wants to be with Eisenheim and is willing to give up everything, including her status, wealth, and her life. With some unfortunate events, she turns up dead and Eisenheim is blamed. In one of his acts of conjuring the dead, he calls on the spirit of Sophie in front of an audience. When asked why he did this he simply says, "I wanted to be with her." In his last show, he appears before an audience as a spirit himself. I couldn't help but be reminded of how our God came to earth as one of us and suffered, died and rose from the dead because he loves us. He did this because He wanted to be with us. Are we willing to give up everything to be with our God? If not, consider at least seeing Jesus as someone who gave up everything to help us see more clearly a God who loves His creation.

In the end Uhl finally sees Eisenheim for who he is. He sees what Eisenheim's greatest illusion is and to what extent he was willing to go to pull it off. When given the details to the orange tree trick, it pales in comparison to his final performance. If we were told exactly what we thought was important and obsessed over, would we be able to see those things that truly mattered?