Echoes of the Gospel in Harry Potter

Clay Myatt

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781666708684
  9781666708691
• eBook ISBN:
  9781666708707
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The best-selling book series of all time and the best-selling book of all time--do they have anything in common? And if so, might there be a reason for that? Echoes of the Gospel in Harry Potter suggests that there is a profound connection between these two beloved and inspirational stories and, moreover, that it is the connection between the two that has caused them to be so widely read and enjoyed. Each chapter sheds light on this connection from a different angle by unpacking how either an aspect of the magical world, a character, or a theme in Harry Potter echoes the gospel--the story the Bible is telling that finds its climax in Jesus Christ. Whether Christian or non-Christian, well-versed in the Bible or unfamiliar with it, fans of the Harry Potter series will find this an illuminating and captivating read.

Part I

The Magical World

1

The Prophecy

To Harry Potter—the boy who lived!

—Witches and Wizards all over England1

In the opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we are introduced not to Harry, but to the aggressively normal members of the Dursley family. The Dursleys are trying to navigate an average day, but their pursuit of ordinariness is repeatedly hindered by strange occurrences and strange figures who insist on celebrating some unknown event. These figures, who turn out to be witches and wizards, are so rambunctious in their festivities because, as Dumbledore says, they have had “precious little to celebrate for eleven years.”2 The wizarding world has been in a state of darkness and despair because of the evil perpetrated by Lord Voldemort and his followers. And things are looking bleak. The Death Eaters outnumber those resisting them twenty-to-one, and there are disappearances and deaths all the time. People are living in a state of anxious fear with very little hope of victory.

And then, all of a sudden, Lord Voldemort is vanquished . . . by a baby boy of all people! It is like the sun shining through a break in the clouds after a long, dark storm, and people finally have a reason to rejoice and be happy again. This is an event worth celebrating! No wonder witches and wizards break out in feasts and parties and set off shooting stars.

The story is very reminiscent of some of the events surrounding the birth of another baby boy two thousand years ago: Jesus of Nazareth. The context of this boy’s birth was also one of darkness and despair: The people of Israel had been exiled from their homeland due to their rejection of God and his ways. And even though they had returned some years later, they still felt enslaved in their land, and things had never quite been the same. Since that time, they had been ruled by a number of different cruel and oppressive regimes, the latest being the Roman Empire. Israel was expecting God to come to his people and deliver them from such powers, but they had been waiting for centuries, and the waiting was hard and wearying.

And then, all of a sudden it seems, a series of different people begin to have odd dreams and visions. An angel appears to an old priest who is married to a barren woman, and he is told that his wife will give birth to a great prophet who will call the Jews to return to their God (Luke 1:5–25). And more significantly, the same angel appears to a virgin girl and tells her that she will give birth to a son who will reign over a kingdom that will never end (Luke 1:26–38). His name is to be Jesus, and he is the Messiah, the promised king who will rescue the Jews from captivity and rule with justice and righteousness. He is the one who will vanquish evil for good.

And the people finally have reason to rejoice again, because Jesus is the light who has come “to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death” (Luke 1:79). As Tolkien says, the birth of the Messiah is the “eucatastrophe”—the shocking but glorious turn—of humanity’s history.3 After the long, dark night of oppressive rulers, the sun is finally starting to rise. God has come to rescue his people. This is good news of great joy worth celebrating! No wonder a great company of angels breaks out into song: “Glory to God in the highest heavens, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14).

But there are two other significant similarities between baby Harry vanquishing Lord Voldemort and the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. First, both events were prophesied. Before Harry was born, Sybill Trelawney, the future Divination professor at Hogwarts, made a prophecy to Dumbledore during her job interview in the Hog’s Head. It said that a child would be born at the end of July who would have the power to defeat the Dark Lord. And then the crucial line: “The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not.”4

Voldemort was never told this second half of the prophecy, though, because Snape, the eavesdropper, only heard the first half before getting caught. Therefore, Voldemort, believing Harry to be the child of the prophecy, made plans to kill him. But by setting out to kill Harry, Voldemort unknowingly marked him as his equal and gave him great power, thus fulfilling the prophecy. And it was this power that Voldemort gave Harry that would wind up being his downfall. As Dumbledore later says, “[Voldemort] not only handpicked the man most likely to finish him, he handed him uniquely deadly weapons!”5

The birth of Jesus was also prophesied. Indeed, after his resurrection, Jesus said, “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44). In other words, Jesus was claiming that the whole Old Testament spoke about his coming. Entire books have been written on this subject, which cannot be addressed here, but I will mention one specific prophecy: the one that came first. This prophecy was given in a moment of great pain—just after the first humans, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God in the garden of Eden. Their rebellion brought a great curse upon the world that left no part untouched. Humans were broken. Their relationships with each other were broken. And the rest of creation was broken.

But God made a promise. Adam and Eve had been tempted by a serpent, a crafty and deceitful creature whom we later learn is Satan, the archenemy of God and his people (Revelation 12:9). And to that serpent, God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). Thousands of years later, Jesus came as the woman’s offspring and fulfilled this prophecy; he is the one who ultimately crushed the head of the serpent. But the shocking thing about this is that the way Jesus defeated Satan is through dying (see Hebrews 2:14–18). It is through letting the serpent strike his heel, as it were, that he crushes the head of the serpent.

And, apparently, Satan did not know this would happen. In fact, Satan is the one who initiates the sequence of events that leads to the crucifixion of Jesus by entering Judas, one of Jesus’ disciples, and instigating him to betray Jesus and hand him over to the religious leaders (Luke 22:3). As the apostle Paul later wrote, if “the rulers of this age” (Satan being the chief ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: The Magical World
• Part II: The Characters
• Part III: The Darkness and the Light
• Conclusion: Resurrection
• Bibliography