A Saga Ends

I saw the very last Harry Potter movie this evening-kind of a sad occasion!  I grew up with that boy...I started reading the Harry Potter books 11 years ago.  That's over half my life!  The funny thing is, I never realized how much of a parallel they have to Christianity.  This evening, while sitting in the theater, I couldn't help but notice how this well-loved series essentially tells our story.  It is (and I mean no blasphemy whatsoever by saying this) essentially...the story of the Gospel, but in much different, more modern terms.  Think about it for a second.  Harry Potter is Jesus.  (And this is where if you haven't read the book or watched the movie and don't want me to ruin it for you-you should stop reading.) Harry, in the end, has to give himself to kill off the last piece of Voldemort's soul.  He gives himself to save everyone else from the destruction.  He is the ONLY one who could do that job; no one else could take the weight of the world.  It was the job he was given and he HAD to do it.  He accepts his fate, and somehow, wins in a way that was never quite expected.  Dumbledore is God.  He sees all, essentially, knows the full story, the whole picture...and is the only one, really.  He dispenses small bits of wisdom as needed at the appropriate moment to save everything.  If he gave that wisdom at any other time, things wouldn't have worked out the same.  The stories only played out how they did, how they "should" have, because it was done according to plan and in the proper place.  I mean, sometimes, there were some surprises from the evil side, but a lot of times, things just had to happen how they did.  Hermione and Ron are the disciples-faithful followers til the end.  They are willing to drop everything and follow him.  Granted, they don't do it perfectly, Ron leaves for a time in the first part of the last book, but eventually finds his way back.  The Harry Potter series is so well loved, and I think that is for a reason.  It mirrors the Gospel!  It's what we all desire, that hero who will save us (well, a lot of times we want to be the hero, but...), that figure who will come give us that wisdom to save us, those people who will follow us until the end, and give everything they have for the "cause".  I think every single series that has been so well loved by humans is for this same reason-because it is our story.  As I was saying, so often we want to be the hero, the star of the show, but we just weren't made for that.  There is only one "Chosen One"-and that is Jesus.  We are called to be the Hermiones and Rons who listen to Harry spit out his crazy plan and say, "Okay, you know best" and follow.  The Bible is pretty radical...the last will be first, when so often we want to be first.  I look in my life and see that so much, so many times when I wanted/want to be first.  But God knows best.  He has a better plan, if only we'll listen and follow it even when it seems completely outlandish, because guess what?  We aren't seeing the whole picture.  And while that can be incredibly frustrating...it can be incredibly freeing.  When we realize we aren't in control and let Him take control?  Life will work out so much better.

Another thought from the movie...Harry and his friends always choose good.  The few times they try the Forbidden Curses just don't work out well for them.  Harry even ends up saving his enemies (sometimes risking his own life to save others), refusing to kill them himself but letting them die another way.  Relate this to sin for a second.  If there is never a right time to use a forbidden curse, even on Voldemort himself-then there is never a right time to sin.  Granted, we are human.  We mess up.  We are going to sin.  But there is never a  right time to CHOOSE sin.  We should always be looking for a different way, because I believe there is always another choice, even when we are struggling to see it.  For those out in cyberland reading this, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that one.  :)

Harry Potter can easily be debated to be one of the best book/movie series ever written and produced.  Interesting to me how it mirrors the Bible-the Greatest Story Ever Told!  Do we as humans subconsciously recognize that?  Is that why books become so well loved?  All the best books I can think of truly have this element of Christianity inside them somewhere, whether the author intended it or not.  Funny how God slips Himself into our lives like that.  :)