The Gospel in Hercules

This post will be based on this scene from the 1997 Disney movie Hercules. I recommend you watch the scene before or while reading the post.

It strikes me that this scene includes TONS of overlapping themes with the good news of the Christian faith and the story of Jesus. I found myself wanting to write it out as I ponder it! Here’s a little play-by-play:

1. Hercules’ friend — his true love — is dying. Even though he is a god, and could consider himself removed from the situation, his humanity leads him to true love and true sorrow. This reminds me of the story of Lazarus (John 11) as well as Jesus’ words “greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).
2. “Take me in Meg’s place.” Hercules enacts his care in an act of sacrificial love, putting himself in harm’s way — literally into the gates/river of death — to save the one he loves. The whole reason I thought of this blog post is because I recently used this as an example of the power of substitutionary stories; another example could be when Frodo cries out, “I will take the ring to Mordor!” despite knowing what it may cost him.
3. You can see Hercules physically dying as he swims through the river of death. He experiences what all humans eventually experience; he doesn’t get special treatment. But he is taking it on voluntarily here, on behalf of another.
4. “This is impossible! You can’t be alive, you’d have to be a… a god?!” Hades thinks he is tricking Hercules, but he doesn’t realize that Hercules is actually a god-human; so when the great exchange is made, Hades is left with nothing. This parallels an ancient interpretation of the cross, in which God plays a divine ‘trick’ on the devil, which is also reflected in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, when (spoiler alert) Aslan tricks the White Witch into accepting his death in Edmund’s place. As Aslan says: “She [should] have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”
5. Hercules defeats Hades, literally punching him back into his own domain, and “death is swallowed by death.” “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘death is swallowed up in victory'” (1 Corinthians 15:54). “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15).
6. If you’re familiar with the Disney movie, you will remember: Hercules’ “true love” is actually a traitor against him! She doesn’t “deserve” his love! To be fair, in classic Disney fashion, she has had changes of heart, and it all aligns perfectly (or tragically) in the movie’s timing. But she has essentially sold herself out to — or been enslaved by — evil. Regardless, Hercules loves and saves her anyway. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

How much of this is intentional? The whole movie is a weird mashup of genres, with Gospel songs throughout, so some or all of this could have been planned. In any case, thanks for joining me on this little reflective journey this Easter season! Tomorrow, my church celebrates “Holy Humor Sunday” in which we dress up and laugh and tell jokes to celebrate Jesus’ triumph over the devil in an unexpected, ironic turn of the tables.

“For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.'” (1 Corinthians 1:18-19)