Do you believe in magic?  So sang the Lovin' Spoonful in the American Sixties.  It was a paean to wonder, a call to explore, an encouragement to dance outside of what seems apparent and true.
     As a band, the Lovin' Spoonful are long gone.  Magic, however, is with us still.  Even in the crucifixion of Jesus.  In British author C. S. Lewis's much loved the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we read that, as the plot unfolds, it seems that in order to rescue one of the "Earth" children who have fallen under the spell of the "White Witch," Aslan, the lion whose outsized presence is felt throughout the story, must die at the hands of the White Witch.  Aslan must give up his life for Edmund's freedom.
    And Aslan does.  Shortly thereafter, however, Lucy sees Aslan again.  Somehow, he has returned from death.  When Lucy asks how this is possible, Aslan tells her that, "Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know."
     So it is that in the cross, the cross of Christ, in this Holy Week, we consider the the magic of God.  It is a magic at once earthly yet at the same time heavenly.  As it should be.  Were it not of this world, we would have no use for it.  Unless it is of that which orders this world, however, it means nothing, nothing at all:  death is the absolute end.
     Do you believe in magic?