The year was 2001 and I was a high school sophomore with a
pretty good idea that what I wanted to be in life was a pastor, which is not exactly the typical thing a
sophomore in high school wants to be so I wasn’t one to talk much about it. I
also had many ideas about what a good Christian pastor looked like— the kind of interests he had, the kind of music he listened to, the things he should be doing and not doing. I had all these
things floating around my head, and one of the particular things I believed was
this idea that a person can choose either to live in reality or escape from reality,
and that Christians are supposed to live in the real world. I had just read The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway and The
Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald and found myself disturbed that people would
choose parties and alcohol and
casual relationships as an alternative
to a purposeful life. As a Christian I felt not only that I should be doing the right things but also that I need not bother wasting any time reading fanciful stories or watching many movies or anything that might suggest an alternative to that good, Christian life. I believed, in short, that everything should be explicitly Christian for it to be good.
So, here I
was a sophomore in high school when my family decided to go to a movie on
Thanksgiving following our family get-together, as was often our custom. And
they decided we would see the newly released Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone. I knew a little about this movie.
I had occasionally heard my mom and my brother reading from the Harry Potter series; it was the most
popular series of books in the world at the time, but I had more or less completely ignored it to that point. My disinterest didn’t have so much to
do with witchcraft, which I knew
that some Christians were upset about, though maybe that was in the back of my
mind too, I’m not sure. But I think I
didn’t really care about it because I thought there was nothing here of
redeeming Christian value. It wasn’t explicitly Christian; it wasn’t telling me
about Jesus or about how to live as a person who follows Jesus, so it seemed
like a distraction from reality.
So I went
to this movie expecting not very much. Well, about halfway through I found
myself having an unexpected experience: I was becoming deeply affected by the
characters and themes of this movie. Maybe some of you have had this experience
with different things in your life. It might have been a book or a movie or a
TV show or a play or a piece of music or something else—something that was like
an onion, which, when peeled away, gave you a better and better understanding of life. In that theater,
that day, I realized, even if I couldn’t have ever put it into words as a 15-year-old, that I was living the
Christian life in the wrong way. I was trying to isolate myself from everything
bad in the world in order that I might
be a good Christian when a Christian is actually supposed to go toward what is rotten and point to Christ
where you least expect him, because the true radicalness of the gospel is
that death and life are turned upside down by Jesus.
‘Death has been swallowed up
in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
-1 Corinthians 15:55
To be a Christian is not to isolate yourself from the world; it’s to root yourself in Jesus so that you can go anywhere and be part of anything and find God there. In that theater half my life ago I found Jesus in a place I was not expecting him to be.
To be a Christian is not to isolate yourself from the world; it’s to root yourself in Jesus so that you can go anywhere and be part of anything and find God there. In that theater half my life ago I found Jesus in a place I was not expecting him to be.
The funny
thing is, as I started to read through the Harry
Potter books in the coming years, I realized more and more that I was
reading a Christian story. At first it was subtle. There were life and death
themes, love triumphing over hate, evil put in its place. But then it got more
obvious. It was around then that I learned that J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote Lord of the Rings, had talked about this
effect of intentionally removing religious rites from his books in order that
the story would tell the Christian story without distraction. My world was
blown open. Things were no longer divided into good things and bad things,
Christian things and un-Christian things—there wasn’t Christian music and
secular music, Christian films and secular films. I realized finally that a
thing doesn’t have to be labeled Christian and devout or holy in order to be
good; and a thing isn’t bad because it doesn’t lay bare a Christian worldview.
The question isn’t whether a thing mentions Jesus; the question is whether it shows you Jesus, even if it doesn’t mean
to.
So I spent
most of the 2000s loving Harry Potter
for a different reason than a lot of others loved Harry Potter. I was never interested in dressing up as characters
from the books or imagining a letter coming in the mail to send me to Hogwarts.
I mean, I guess that would be cool, and I wouldn’t turn it down if it happened,
but I’m a little realistic. I also wasn’t interested in re-creating the stories
in the realm of fan fiction and keeping the characters alive in that way.
Instead, I was always interested in Harry Potter because I sensed something
good and true about what I was seeing and reading; more than the good guy
winning and the bad guy losing here was a story that honored grief, that lifted
up humility and grace as the highest virtues, and that showed me that
ultimately death is not a thing to be feared because death does not win. That’s
a message that Harry Potter taught me better than my pastors or youth leaders
or parents. Death is defeated. And there’s no more Christian message than that.
“The last
enemy to be destroyed is death.” 1 Corinthians 15:26… and also the words
inscribed on the tombstone of Harry Potter’s parents.
So, here’s
where I think this gets interesting for all of us, and not just Harry Potter
dorks like me. We all have interests, and I’m not just talking about things
we’re good at here—because I do also like to talk about spiritual gifts and
about how God gives us certain strengths and abilities for the good of the
kingdom of God and so that you might make the world a better place. I’m not
talking about those here. I’m actually talking about the interests we have that
have nothing to do with our talents; I’m talking about what entertains us and
gives our lives meaning; it can even mean those things we use to escape, which I
was so afraid of as a teenager. I’m talking about the kinds of books you read,
the kinds of television you watch, the kinds of movies you see, even the kinds
of games you play, and the kinds of competitions you follow, the kinds of
hobbies you have. You’re attracted to each of these for a reason! Not all of
these are good reasons and not everything is beneficial for you, but we need to
be open to the possibility that God is doing something with that thing in your
life that seems to have nothing to do with Jesus, because typically I find
there’s a reason why we enjoy the things that we do and we shouldn’t discount
that!
Harry
Potter changed my life. That sounds absurd—right?! I mean, I feel like I
shouldn’t even say that, like I should be telling everybody: Just read your
Bibles because that’s how God is supposed to speak to you. But if I told you
that was my personal experience I’d be lying, because it didn’t happen to me
like that. One of the foundations of my religious experience came from my
culture, through the work of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit works through
everything.
I believe
that you will hear only two different messages in your life. The first is that
death is the only certainty in life, and the second is that death is defeated. If
something or somebody is telling you that death wins then that thing or person
is not showing you Jesus, but if something or somebody is telling you that
death has been defeated, then that person or thing is showing you Jesus whether
they realize it or not, because what can defeat death? Paul asks this question
in 1 Corinthians and then answers it: If death is destroyed it is most
assuredly the work of Jesus Christ. Every road, secular or religious, will lead
to Jesus, who says in John that he is “the way, the truth, and the life.” The
only one! Everything leads there, no matter how circuitous. The only question
is whether the thing you are seeking is telling you that death wins or life. Everything
that points to life points to Jesus.
As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, from our reading today:
“But
in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who
have died.”
There’s your agriculture metaphor, again for those who are
counting.
“For
since death came through a human being,”
–he’s talking about Adam and Eve, original sin.
“The
resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in
Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”
Nobody doubts that the wages of sin are death; that all of
us die; but Jesus gives us something utterly incomprehensible, which is that
not only will all die but all will be
made alive again.
Paul
continues: “But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his
coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the
kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every
authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under
his feet.”
This is warfare language; Jesus going to battle against sin
and rulers and authorities, and what are those rulers and authorities but the
parts of ourselves that want to be like God? That’s what Jesus is conquering
before finally we come to this:
“The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
The last one. Because it’s the thing we are ultimately
fighting against, and everything in our lives speaks either death or new life.
Compassion gives life; gossip gives death. Empathy brings life; pride brings
death. Humility—life; arrogance—death. Love—life; hate—death. There is no
substitute; no shortcuts. We die because we are all Adam and we are all Eve, we
are all sinners. As 1 Corinthians says again, “The sting of death is sin, and
the power of sin is the law.” You cannot be made righteous by following the
law. Instead, we need Jesus to do something we cannot. We need him to defeat
death.
And that changes everything. It
frees us. We don’t have to worry anymore. When we discover grace we cannot look
at the world the same way again. Everything has a beauty to it. Everything is
lawful—not everything is beneficial—but everything is lawful because of Christ.
Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 6. And Paul isn’t so forgetful that he
doesn’t know what he wrote nine chapters earlier. He knows what he’s saying.
Everything is lawful for you now, because Christ has come and will come again
and death will be no more. So go, be disciples, there is nothing to be afraid
of—least of all death.
So,
let me conclude with the words of Albus Dumbledore, six books and many years
after my first experience with Harry Potter, where he speaks to Harry a line
that might also have been said about Jesus.
“You are the true master of death,”
he says, “Because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He
accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things
in the living world than dying.” (DH 721)
And I’ll simply add: There are far
better things in the life to come because the last enemy is barely holding on.
No comments:
Post a Comment