Redemption

In summer of 2009, I began reading the Harry Potter books for the first time, and I quickly fell in love with them. Before I even finished the first book, I had already bought the second and third books, wanting more and more to find out what happened next. I remember literally crying when I did finish that first book. Not just crying, but smiling uncontrollably as well, feeling nothing but pure joy rushing through my soul. That story was one of friendship, first and foremost, and at that time, I needed to believe I could make friends. That story is also about good overcoming evil, and I remember thinking as I read it, about how completely divine so much of it was. So much can so often go so wrong in this world, and yet here was a book emphasizing some of the most loving, wholesome, Godly themes I had ever read. It was magical in every sense. And I was completely hooked.

Over the next month and a half, I read through the entire series. I spent every chance I could to continue reading. I loved the characters, was enthralled by the story, and was captivated by the detailed settings. And when I had finished, I knew I had changed somehow.

Those books can put you into a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, especially from books four and on, and by the end I was literally drained, as well as speechless. I was dumbfounded. I saw one of the most beautiful stories ever written. It’s one of the greatest examples of love and goodness that has ever been written. It is one of making the right choices in life, and honoring all that is good. And it is one of redemption.

(Spoiler Alert) Throughout the entire series, Severus Snape is really a nasty sort of loathsome character. There’s virtually nothing about him to like. He’s a horrible teacher, mean to his students, uncaring about all others, devious to say the least. And yet, in the end, something is revealed about him that makes him one of the saddest, most virtuous, and redeemable characters in all of literature.

Severus Snape was a fallen person. He was a boy who’d grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak, never really having any positive influences or friends, other than that of a girl named Lilly. He and Lilly grew up together, as childhood friends, and he came to love her very much. As years passed, however, their friendship dwindled. Severus made choices that led him away from her, that drug him only into a world of darkness and evil, one which she wasn’t willing to accompany him. And it was his choices that led him to, in effect, cause the death of Lilly and her husband, leaving her son, Harry, an orphan.

Losing Lilly destroyed Severus. And it woke him up. He saw how clearly he’d made the wrong choices, how he’d placed his faith in the wrong things. And, unbeknownst to anyone other than Albus Dumbledore, and eventually Harry Potter, this caused him to change for the good. In the end, Harry would not have lived, nor defeated Voldemort, if not for the help of Severus Snape—help which he hid in the form of giving Harry detention, constantly following after him, working secretly in the midst of the enemy as a double agent, disgracing himself in the eyes of the good, and even killing his friend, Albus Dumbledore, to achieve. He allowed everyone to hate him in order to do what was right, and to make right the wrong he’d brought about. In the end, Severus Snape was a hero who loved and cared a great deal for Harry. In the end, Severus Snape was redeemed.

There are so many Christian themes within the Harry Potter storyline, but I think it is this one I like the most. And I know it is because I’ve done things wrong in my past that still to this day fill me so full of regret and self-hate. There are a lot of things I’ve done wrong that I wish so much I could take back. When I think of Severus Snape, I’m filled with hope for redemption. I’m reminded that I, too, can choose to do what is good, and fight for that which is good. I’m reminded that even though one’s past can haunt them, and perhaps even weigh them down on a daily basis sometimes, one’s future can be that of redemption. The best of us can be brought out into the light, and the worst wiped away.

And it is for that reason that I say Severus Snape is one of my most favorite literary characters of all time, and why I say I was left speechless and dumbfounded by the time I finished reading this series. I think it was in this that I saw for the first time how very powerful and beautiful Christ’s love for us is. I saw how much I truly need him in my life. To be redeemed by Him, to be forgiven.

That’s something so powerful that words can never fully express. But I thank J.K. Rowling for the story of Harry Potter, because through it, I know I became closer to Christ. Anything that does that must be worth mentioning.

Harry Potter and a Way to Resist the Devil

Sometimes I feel as though this life of mine just isn’t worth living. I feel sad, lonely, hopeless, angry, bitter, confused, and practically every other negative emotion a person could ever feel. I feel these ways more often than not, and I struggle terribly at times to stop these feelings. But every once in a while something comes along that makes me forget about everything bad in the world. It lifts my spirit, reminds me of something good that sometime happened, or gives me hope for something better.

I love watching the Harry Potter movies. I’ve never known a series that advocated love, friendship, and hope more than it. There’s a scene from the latest movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, toward the end, which moved me so much when I saw it the other day. I’d seen this movie a couple of times before, but I hadn’t really stopped to pay attention to this particular scene as closely as I should have. In it, Harry’s nemesis, Voldemort, takes control of his mind and body, incapacitating Harry, filling his mind with all sorts of horrible thoughts—the death of his parents and loved ones, times of loneliness, insecurities. Harry lies on the ground fighting to resist these feelings. Seeing him struggle, his teacher and mentor, Dumbledore, leans down beside him and says to him, “Harry, it isn’t how you are alike. It’s how you are not.” Harry then sees his two closest friends, Ron and Hermione, standing in the distance. He’s suddenly able to fill his mind with thoughts of their friendship, and of all the good times they have had together. And he thinks about the people he has known and loved. With these thoughts, he is eventually able to break free of Voldemort’s hold on him just enough to respond to him. “You’re the one who’s weak,” Harry says to him. “And you’ll never know love, or friendship. And I feel sorry for you.” At this, Voldemort tries harder to attack him, but Harry is able to fight him off. Voldemort leaves Harry’s body and then just stands over him and says, “You’re a fool Harry Potter. And you will lose everything.” A few minutes later, as everything has settled down and the movie is about to end, Harry tells his friends that they all have something Voldemort doesn’t have. “What’s that?” asks Ron. “Something worth fighting for,” Harry replies.

Can anyone else see the connection here between what happened in this movie and real life? I didn’t see it the first couple of times I watched this movie, but the way Voldemort attacks Harry is exactly how the devil attacks each of us. The devil fills our minds, runs us down, makes us to dwell upon all the bad in our lives and in the world, and in the hope that in doing so it will eventually destroy us.

I tend to think that God sends me those little moments of goodness to help me resist. Like Harry, sometimes I need someone to tell me I’m not bad. Sometimes I need something to remind me of better times. Sometimes I need to know my friends are still my friends. I am loved. I have known friendship. I have friends. I may sometimes be very much like the devil, but in so many ways, I know I am so very different from him. Dumbledore’s advice to Harry is good advice to accept. It’s not how we are alike, but how we are not alike that should make all the difference. I have known and experienced so many wonderful things the enemy never has and never will. These are things he can’t understand, but damns others because they do. Rather than hating and tearing down others and myself, and giving up, as he’d like me to do, and as he does, I have something better to hope for. I have something so much more worth fighting for. Why would I ever want to give that up?

I wrote in one of my comments to another post recently that if people would just look more for the good in themselves and the good in others, this world would be a far better place to live in. I believe in that with all of my heart. It’s that good that separates us from the devil. I believe there is good in everyone, and that no one is beyond saving. I believe that’s a big part of what the Christian message should be to the world. We can either join up with the one who has only ever had our destruction and misery in mind, or we can join the one who has brought about all the good we have ever known and could ever hope to know. Which one is more worth fighting for?

Like Harry Potter, I think I’d rather fight for what’s good in the world. And like him, I too feel sorry for the enemy. He will never know love. He will never know friendship. He will never know anything but hate and destruction. And I will never understand why he fights for that so much. Maybe it’s simply because he has already lost everything, and he wants all of us to lose as well. Whatever the reason, I’m not like him. And I’m not as he suggests I am. Despite whatever flaws I may have, I am so much better than that. And the next time he tries to take over my mind and my body, I think that’s just what I’ll tell him.