The Old Testament reading for today was powerful, and I’d like to start by quoting it in full:
Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem! Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement; when the overwheliming scourge passes through it will not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”; therfore thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation; ‘He who believes will not be in haste.’ And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.” Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through you will be beaten down by it. As often as it passes through it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be sheer terror to understand the message. For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on it, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in it. For the LORD will rise up as on Mount Pera’zim, he will be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon; to do his deed–strange is his deed! and to work his work–alien is his work! Now therefore do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord GOD of hosts upon the whole land.
In the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone (or Sorcerer’s stone, as the American version has it) Harry is the only person who can destroy the famed alchemical rock which grants eternal life to its bearer. Rowling clearly means to make us think of the philosophical ramifications of this rock, for she uses the name of a historical alchemist, Nicholas Flamel. Voldemort wants the rock of course, because his only goal is to never die (He’s like Woody Allen, who said: I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve immortality by not dying). Its very simple and most of our daily actions probably betray an inner Voldemort–we quite frankly want to escape the scourge of the rock of ages, the rock of the corner, the rock which the builders rejected. For as we read in the Gospels this rock crushes those upon whom it falls, and breaks to pieces those who trip over it. This is the death which beckons Harry over seven books. Why is he the only one who can handle, and destroy, this powerful rock? Because he is the only one who is not attracted by its lure. It should be noted here that the alchemical rock, the philosopher’s stone, is not the true corner, but it is the epitome of man’s version of that stone. Luther would call it works. The Catholic Catechism calls it the sin against the Holy Ghost. Bonhoeffer called it cheap grace. It’s my rock, and I hold it up as a talisman against the Everlasting Rock which would crush me. It is the rock of knowledge and science, something I try to get across in my Death & Dying class, in connecting the fall of alchemy with the rise of modern science, whose final goal is to evade death, to replace old organs with new ones, to reprogram the self-destruct mode of our genetic code.
But He makes “righteousness the plummet” not immortality. The showdown with Voldemort in that first book is very instructive. Where does Harry finally find the rock? In the mirror of Erised, the mirror in which your deepest desire and fantasy is revealed. The Harry that he sees in the mirror slips the rock into his pocket, and at that moment the real Harry feels its weight. Harry’s deepest desire is for this man-made rock, but only to destroy it. It is almost as if Harry himself is the true rock, for the goal of this rock is to destroy the other one, or to be destroyed by it, as the prophecy has said, “neither can live while the other survives.” And when Voldemort (or the Voldemort that has infested Quirrel) reaches out to slay Harry, Harry’s body, which has been infested by the love of his mother, the carrier for this true rock, causes Voldemort’s carrier to crumble into dust.
Voldemort has made a “covenant with death” a covenant to flee from it, and thus we have the ambiguity that he is one who flees death, and yet his followers are death eaters. Whereas Harry is destined to destroy death but only by succumbing to it. It is the difference between the two rocks, but until Harry has made the final sacrifice he is not really sure which rock he belongs to, at times he thinks he is Voldemort himself. This is consistent with the work and deed of the true rock which is “alien” and “strange.” Voldemort only desires more of the same and thus by fearing death he spreads it and its sameness relentlessly. There is also in Harry a desire to make things remain, to stop the ravages of death and time, but stronger is the strange urge to make things new, to be faithful to the end of things, to let them die before they live again. This is why the immortality of those around Harry who have died is not sentimental, but shows forth a Paschal truth.
Aron, nice post. Thanks for drawing all this out. I was thinking about your reading of the Older Testament passages and trying to imagine what the citizens of Jerusalem must have thought they meant when they were originally delivered, other than the simple NT “fulfillment” style reading. Do you know anything about the context of the passage that might illuminate? I find it particularly interesting that the people of Israel, who clearly identified themselves above other nations as people of in covenant with YHWH, are here being identified as being faithful to an entirely different covenant, analogous - as you point out - to Voldemort having a covenant with death (and death eaters), when he himself preaches that he has done more than any other magician to destroy/conquer death.
Hey guys, I just received the newsletter from St Paul’s K Street, DC and there is a superb article (1st of a series) by John Orens, professore at Geo Mason U. The article should be available online at:
http://www.stpauls-kst.com/pdfs/Epistle-Sept07.pdf
and is entitled Liberating Orthodoxy/The Adventure of Anglo-Catholicism. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Yes, I think that there is a definite allegation that the Israelites, especially their rulers (perhaps referring to foreign powers?) are completely idolatrous. The reading is from Isaiah 28 and while we don’t usually associate these passages with Apocalyptic literature, there seems to be at least the seeds of an end time thinking here. There is perhaps more bleed between prophecy and apocalypse then is usually let on–the prophet begins to articulate deliverance as Divine aid that reduces human resistance to rubble and straw.
I wonder, however, if our friend wouldn’t suggest that this reading of Isiah is completely skewed and rather anti-semitic. The Israelites, as we know, weren’t completely idolatrous. I’m reading a good book on this issue right now that suggests that there was an internal struggle between those we might call the Faithful - or Rowling’s Order of the Phoenix - and the unfaithful/idolatrous - the death eaters. And, as with the HP books, those in the middle, often wishing to remain “neutral”, although HP brilliantly brings out that there is no such thing as neutral. It’s burke, I believe, who said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Our rector treated the OT passage last Sunday by pointing out that the historical setting was that Sennacherib was descending in force on Jerusalem, and so Israel had made an alliance (covenant) with Egypt — of all nations — to protect them. An outright alliance with the idol worshippers from whom God had delivered them out of Egypt, when the Law was given to Moses…. The prophetic outrage is pretty understandable. They were afraid of being killed by Sennacherib’s armies, so they signed a covenant with Egypt.