Matthew the Marvelous Magician’s Miracle
A Story by Pastor Karl Bastian
Matthew got his first magic kit when he was a very small boy and ever
since he had been putting on little magic shows for his family and friends.
But he had never really done a ‘real’ show for a ‘real’ audience.
He couldn’t wait, but he kept practicing.
Then one day, a real professional magician named Mr. Taylor moved into
the neighborhood and they quickly became friends.
This old man had once been on television with his magic bird, and had
even had his own magic kit made – and gave one of his last ones to Matthew,
autographed. They would watch magic
shows together and Mr. Taylor would help Matthew figure out how the magicians
had done their tricks. But he would
often say, “There’s always a trick, Matthew.
Only God can do real miracles.”
Then one day, he finally got his big chance to do a REAL magic show, for
the entire school and all the parents! His school has going to have a student
talent show, and Matthew was the first to sign up – he named his act, Matthew
the Marvelous Magician’s Miracle Show. He
ran all the way home, well, actually, past his home, and straight to Mr.
Taylor’s house. He burst through the front door without knocking yelling,
“Mr. Taylor, you gotta help me! I
need a miracle!” His old friend
came out of another room, and said, ‘Well, come on in.
What do you need a miracle for? Are you in trouble?”
Matthew explained that he was going to do a magic show for the entire
school and all the parents and he needed a BIG trick to end the show.
All his little tricks were O.K., but he had no finale.
Mr. Taylor smiled and said, “I have the perfect trick, and I’d be
honored to have you borrow it for your first real show!
Call you mom, and tell her you are here, and then come down to the
basement.”
Soon Matthew was in the basement and found Mr. Taylor in front of a
shinning metal box. It had red velvet lining and a giant lock on the front.
He opened the box and asked Matthew what was inside.
“Nothing?” answered Matthew. Then
he watched as the old man closed it, and waved his arms all around it humming a
silly tune. He then opened it again
and asked Matthew to look inside, and to his amazement it was filled with candy!
He reached in and took a handful!
“I thought maybe you could end your show with this, and then throw out
the candy to all the kids” said Mr. Taylor.
“Oh, yeah! That’s great! They
will love the trick, and they will love the candy even more! Thank you, thank
you! How does it work?”
“Oh, it’s quite simple, it just has a secret compartment that only
opens the second time you open it. The
first time is looks empty because of a mirror, and the second time it looks
filled with candy, though it is only half deep.
I’ll tell you what, this box is very valuable and very special to me, I
will bring it to the show all ready to do. All you will have to do is open it
once to show it empty, and again to show the candy, after waving your arms and
humming a silly tune of course!” said the old man laughing.
“Oh, of course!” replied Matthew smiling.
“Now, you get home and practice your other tricks!”
It seemed like forever, but it was only three weeks later when the day of
the big magic show came. The school
auditorium was filled with students and parents and many where excited to see
Matthew’s first real magic show. After
the dancing hamsters, a juggler, and several solos and instrument recitals, they
would finally get to the finale of the whole program, Matthew the Marvelous
Magician’s Miracle Show! The
teachers had put his show last as the final presentation!
Mr. Taylor brought the shining magic box and put it
back stage and told Matthew it was all ready to go. Just be sure to hit the ‘reset’ button right before he
did the trick to be sure the empty part showed first.
What Matthew didn’t know was that during one of the other acts, some
kids that were waiting back stage saw the shining red box and wondered what it
was. They opened it and saw that it
was empty, but when another kid opened it they saw all the candy, and
unfortunately, they were not very nice kids – they took all the candy and
stuffed it in their pockets and had just reclosed it when Matthew showed up.
The kids ran to sit down and Matthew wondered why they were giggling, but
he put it out of his mind and went out on stage.
He had never seen so many people! And
the lights were sooooo bright, but he quickly got his bearing and all the advice
from Mr. Taylor came flooding into his mind.
“It’s just like you’re at home, practicing in front of the
mirror….. Just perform for your parents, and the others will enjoy it too.”
He did his first trick with shaking hands, but
the applause told him he was doing great, and by the third trick he didn’t
even feel nervous any more. So by
the time he got to the hid finale, he was feeling great! He rolled the shinny metal box with red velvet lining out
onto the stage with much fanfare. He
looked down at Mr. Taylor and his parents in the first row, and saw the old
magician wink at him. He smiled
back.
“For my final act,” declared Matthew the Marvelous Magician, “and
my greatest miracle, I will make something appear from nothing!”
With amazing grace and style he opened the wonderful looking box and
showed it empty to the audience, and then reclosed it and asked for silence so
he could summon something from nothing. The audience was silent as Matthew waved
his arms around the box dramatically and hummed his silly tune, and then
standing tall and proud he said, “Behold, Something from Nothing!” and
opened the box. He kept his gaze on
the audience awaiting the cheers and claps that had followed the other tricks,
but there remained only silence, then a few chuckles, and then laughter started
to break out everywhere. Matthew
turned and looked at the magic box and saw that it was EMPTY!
The candy was gone! He
closed the box and turned back to the audience and saw all the laughing faces
and felt like a total fool. He had
trusted Mr. Taylor to have it all ready. What
had gone wrong? He looked down at
the old magician who seemed to be the only one who was not either laughing or
looking embarrassed for him, and saw his mouth the words, ‘open it again –
open it again.” Matthew turned
back to the box, and rather nervously waved his arms around it and tried to hum
but the tune got stuck in his throat. Then
he opened the box again, ignoring all the laughter and suddenly had to jump
back! Out of the box flew what
looked like an explosion of streamers and paper flowers.
And as they burst out they continued to burst and unfold until the entire
front of the stage was filled with beautiful and colorful flowers and streamers
and even more streamers were still falling down from the air into the front rows
of the auditorium. The audience
jumped to their feet in wild cheers and he looked down through the streamers to
see his mom crying and dad beaming and Mr. Taylor smiling ear to ear, and he
winked again. Teachers and students
would be talking for weeks about Matthew the Marvelous Magician’s Miracle
Show!
Later that evening, back at Mr. Taylor’s home Matthew asked his friend
happened to the candy. “I don’t
know, I think some kids must have messed with the box while it was back stage
and took all the candy. I’m just
glad they didn’t open it a third time! The
box has another secret compartment that opens the third time you open it. But when you hit the ‘reset’ button, you put it back to
the first opening, so you had to open it three times to get the surprise I put
in for you. I had planned for the
streamers and flowers to be a surprise after you tossed the candy out.
But it all worked out, didn’t it?”
“It
sure did! I’m sure glad that you
had that third compartment, because when the other one was empty – my miracle
was about to be a flop, and in front of the whole school!”
And
then as he usually did, Mr. Taylor thought of a way this experience shows us
something about God. “You know,
Matthew, as I often say, ‘Only God can do miracles’, but today I think we
learned that even when things don’t go right, God always has something else up
his sleeve, and he can always save the day.
You thought the candy was a great way to end, but I had something even
better planned for you, that you didn’t even know about.
Often god has something even better for us too than we can even think of
or imagine. I sure am that both of
us are trusting God everyday with our lives.
Everyday is a miracle day with God!”
The End
Copyright 2002. Karl Bastian, and Kidology Inc. All Rights Reserved.