The Boy Who Lived. It’s a story that most have come to love. It’s a story that began with a prophecy and ended with the triumph of good over evil. So what can we learn from the epic narrative of the Harry Potter series that can help us to understand the most mind-boggling part of the Bible – prophecy?
You may recall that the somewhat strange Professor Trelawney gave a prophecy before Harry Potter was ever born. It essentially predicted that a boy would come who would defeat the evil wizard, Lord Voldemort. In an attempt to thwart this, the Dark Lord hunted down and tried to kill Harry while he was just a babe. That didn’t bode well for him. However, it would not be his last chance to face off against Harry Potter.
Our culture loves prophecy. There is an air of mystery to it that fascinates us. And so many of us pick up the Bible in hopes that the prophecy we find within it will thrill us. And then we find ourselves lost, bored, and confused. So what’s the deal with it?
Biblical Prophecy
A large portion of the Bible (nearly 30%) is prophetic writing. Most of it makes very little sense at first glance, so we must understand what these writers are actually saying if we are going to get anything out of reading it. The first step is to realize who the prophets were.
Prophets were like a branch of Israel’s theocratic government. Their job was to speak on behalf of God to the people. This stands in contrast to their counterpart, priests, who spoke on behalf of the people to God. As the mouthpiece of God, they spoke regarding three main topics. Calling God’s people out for their sin, extending an olive branch through repentance, and also predicting a thing that we call “The Day of the Lord.”
“The Day of the Lord” is where we find all future based prophesy, and it makes up much less of the prophets’ time than the rest (Israel was very naughty.) However, this is the type of prophecy that lines up best with our current understanding of prophecy as a prediction of future events. What is difficult for us to understand is which events have come true and what events are left to be fulfilled. For the sake of brevity, I won’t go into them all but will give you a brief overview of the circumstances surrounding the prophetic writings.
What is “The Day of The Lord”
Essentially this is a time where God renders judgment, but I believe that this is a restorative type of experience. In response to Israel’s unfaithfulness to their covenant with God, he removes them from the promised land and into exile in Assyria and Babylon. This is the first real “Day of the Lord,” and it is essentially a world-ending event for the people of Israel. Their city is burned, Temple destroyed, and their theocracy (a government system where God is the King) is disbanded. This is an apocalyptic level event for them. Everything they ever knew is destroyed, and everything they had ever believed in is challenged. They are carted off to slavery again, all hope is lost.
But God continued to make a way. New prophets were raised up to predict another “Day of the Lord” in which the Persian Empire would conquer Babylon – again an apocalyptic level event. But, the Persians would allow the Israelites to return to their homeland and rebuild the city and the Temple.
The final set of “Day of the Lord” prophecies of the Old Testament spoke of a Messianic King. He would be raised up out of Israel to restore them to the utterly sovereign nation that they once were. This king would rule over God’s people from Jerusalem once again, and they would be unstoppable and never ending. This is where things get tricky. Parts of these prophecies have been fulfilled in the coming of Jesus, and some have yet to be realized.
Already but Not Yet
The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus vastly changed the world. However, it did not change it in all of the ways that were predicted. So the question is, did the prophets get it wrong? No, they did not. Our linear interpretation of the prophecy got it wrong. The Messianic Prophecies are what we call “already not yet,” which means some of it has happened. But some will occur in the future. As Christians, we have the final book of the Bible to help us understand God’s ultimate restoration of the world through Jesus. It will be the ultimate “Day of the Lord,” where all injustice and sin are erased.
Going back to our friend Harry Potter can help illustrate this. The prophecy stated that a boy would be raised up and defeat the Dark Lord. Harry, as a baby fulfilled that prophecy. Or so everyone thought. The reality was that he only temporarily took away the power of Lord Voldemort. He gave the world a reprieve from his oppression over them. But as far as the masses were concerned, Voldemort was dead, and there was nothing to fear.
However, we know that wasn’t true. Although the prophecy was fulfilled, it wasn’t completed yet. The people were warned of the Dark Lord’s return, but they wouldn’t believe it until it happened. Only then did Harry finally complete the prophecy by killing Voldemort and ending his reign of tyranny over the wizarding world.
So What?
There is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to Biblical Prophecy, and there are a lot of people out there trying to use the Bible to predict the return of Christ. The truth is we don’t have enough information to do such things. Jesus himself said that no one will know the time of his return. It is going to happen, and a proper reading of Old Testament prophecy will help us have faith that what God says will happen will undoubtedly come about. It just might not be the way that we hope for and expect.
Prophets were public figures who used their status to inspire change. They saw injustice and called it out. They wrote in limericks and poetry, mixing both figurative and literal language to illustrate their points. We can’t take everything they said literally, but we also can’t say that it is all wordplay. So we must be careful. But God has given us hope, a track record of making things new.
We must hold on to the “already” and keep our eyes and our hope on the “not yet” – God’s future restoration of his people. But we must also press forward and play our part in making this a juster and more peaceful world. Just as individuals are called to reflect Christ in the world, the Church is called to reflect the New Creation in the world. So keep on calling out the ways that both the world and the Church fail to live up to God’s justice and righteousness. Offer up repentance, and proclaim the hope of final restoration to a world that so desperately needs to hear it.
Grace and Recovery 