Saviors, superheroes, synonyms for which humanity seems obsessed with. When you search through our lore, ancient and modern, you can see them throughout, but why? The answer is not cut and dry because it depends on the perspective you take. For some it might be a call for humanity to rise above itself and become something greater then it is, like in Hindu, Buddhism, or humanism; insomuch as these three ideas/religions call for humanity to do the work for themselves with little intervention on God’s part or even the idea that there is no God. However, I am none of these, as you know, I am a Christian and when I see these images I see God calling out to humanity who is calling out to God.
These Images become a circular conversation between humanity and the divine. They remind humanity of the superhuman power that exist around us in God’s presence and for me, God is everywhere, working with us and through us, lifting us up, walking with us through this life. When I see these images I am reminded of the true superhero, Jesus, and what his story means for our lives. In the story of Jesus we find the perfect merger of the divine and humanity, reconciling all of humanity to the power and wonder of the divine.
This obsession with understanding our relationship with the divine has most recently been explored in the lore of Harry Potter. One could argue that a magical wizard could never be used to parallel the story of Jesus, but that is where we get short sighted. There is nothing evil about Harry Potter and his story is very similar to Jesus’, as most superheroes’ are.
I would like to make this very clear before I continue. This is not the pagans Jesus. The fact that magic is used does not negate the reality of the parallels and make them less valid. Furthermore, the use of magic does not mean that the parallels drawn were made to make a mockery of Jesus’ story. I would pose that unbeknownst to Rowling, whom I have never spoken to and cannot not quote in any manner of truly feeling this way, wrote this story as an exercise of demonstrating that the good in this world will always conquer the evil, which is in of itself a parallel to the story of Jesus. God works everywhere and in every way, even if we do not know that God is working through us.
Let us start our exploration with the fact that the story of Harry Potter is an expose for all ages on, how the good in this world will always conquer evil. In every quest Harry defeated the evil in his way. Isn’t that what Jesus has done for us in real life? From the overall theme we can move to more specific examples of Jesus story.
Probably the most telling is the resurrection of Harry in final book and movie. While Harry had to use magic to pull off this resurrection, Jesus only needed his Godliness to conquer death. Beyond the resurrection is the defeating of the bringer of death, in Harry’s case his name is Voldermort. I would also point out that what we call miracles can be considered magic. Jesus turning water into wine sounds like transfiguration to me.
My point in all of this is to show you that God continues to work and continues to talk to us. We should never count something out merely because of the medium it uses to tell. If the message is bad, by all means avoid it, negativity breads negativity, but magic and wonder are all around us and are tools of YHWH. I challenge you and will continue to do so always to find new ways that God is talking to you.
As always Peace and many blessings
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