Yesterday afternoon, my wife and I joined some friends to see the final installment of the Harry Potter film franchise. As the closing credits rolled, it was a bittersweet moment – bitter because it was, for me, the close of a decade’s experience of the Harry Potter phenomenon, and sweet because the masterful story spun by J.K. Rowling had come to a close so well on the silver screen. It was an evening of enjoyment and celebration – but today, it is time for a moment of reflection.
To me, no other story of recent times has conveyed one of the key truths of the Christian faith better or to a wider audience than the Harry Potter books and movies. Amid the witches and wizards, goblins and games of Quidditch, battles and broomsticks, one power is consistently highlighted and held up as something to aspire to and embrace. That power, magic or Muggle, is love. From the first book through the last, sacrificial love is shown to defeat evil, protect good, and make life worth living. Harry’s mother died to save him out of her love, and we are told in the very first book that this loving act protects Harry from the evil Lord Voldemort.
Yet we also find out that love not only protects; it also actively opposes evil. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, we hear a prophecy made about Harry. The seer, in foreseeing the great conflict between good and evil, Harry and Voldemort, said, “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord…will have power that the Dark Lord knows not.” That power was love. And in the final showdown, Harry allows himself to be struck with Voldemort’s killing curse to protect his friends and make it possible for Voldemort to be defeated and evil to lose the day. From start to finish, Harry Potter is the champion of the power of love.
This is the sort of love embodied by an even greater champion in an even greater (and true!) story. Jesus lived a life of love, particularly for the poor and marginalized. His love led him to stand against the powers of evil, and ultimately led him to die on the cross, a sacrificial gift of love. This is the love he taught to his followers: “My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no-one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.” (John 15:12-14)
The challenge taught by Christ and lived by the fictional Harry Potter is now our challenge: to love as Christ loved. If we do, no power, not even death, can stand against us. Let us live in the power of love.
In Christ,
Adam
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