A few days ago, Esther and I watched "Mufasa: The Lion King" at a movie theater. As a child, I grew up watching the 1994 Disney film, "The Lion King" over and over, always fascinated by the scenes and plot of the movie. As we headed to the movie theater, I pondered and wondered how the story of Mufasa would unfold, given that the story is supposed to predate the 1994 version of The Lion King.
The story opens with Kiara, Simba's daughter and a young lioness cub, entering a cave where Rafiki shares the tale of another cub—her grandfather Mufasa. Mufasa grows up hearing stories from his parents about Milele, a mystical paradise where everything exists in perfect harmony and beauty. Early in the movie, Mufasa loses his family during a devastating flood. But through a series of dramatic events, he finds a new home and family with another pride. The pride, however, is assaulted by the white lions, leaving Mufasa and his brother Taka on the run for their lives. Remembering the mystical place of Milele, beyond the horizon of the sun, the two brothers head to the land which they have never seen.
Along the way, they meet a monkey named Rafiki, who tells them about his vision of the sacred tree in Milele and reveals he's heading there too. The unlikely group—three lions, joined by one more astray lioness, a monkey, and a small bird named Zazu—embark on their journey to Milele, inspired by Rafiki's vision of the tree. Their path is fraught with challenges as they face one ordeal after another, with white lions fiercely chasing them. When they finally reach Milele and find the tree from Rafiki's vision, they discover that even in this paradise, their journey isn't over. The beautiful end awaits as a fierce battle must be fought with white lions who follow the party into Milele.
Watching the movie, with beautiful graphics of the tree and Milele pictured right on the screen, I was reminded of another biblical story—the grand story of redemptive history that tells about the telos, the end, of all things. In that story, there is a tree too, not a mystical one, but the real tree, the tree of life that embodies realities of all realities, the truths of all truths renewing and restoring all things in creation at the end of all things.
Seeing Mufasa and his party moving on, engaging in the messy work of restoring the order of life, the praxis of their vocations inspired by the telos, the vision of the tree in Milele—I reflected on our lives and vocations for the year of 2024, longing and praying for the praxis of our earthly vocations in the new year to be a little bit more real, and a little bit more true to the truest telos of heaven until all realities, invisible and visible, become real and true in the presence of the truest tree of life.
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