Blurb of “How the Lion King reveals identity and vocation”
Have you ever considered how the spirit of The Lion King weaves beautifully with the spirit of the Bible? 25 years later, the story still touches us deeply and satisfies our deepest longings. Explore the themes of the Father’s love, exile, baptism, identity and vocation … and the threading together of two of the greatest stories ever told!
Excerpt from this episode
“Jesus of course is the biblical exemplar of everything I just said. Have you ever noticed that this Mufasa apparition scene looks suspiciously like the baptism of Jesus? In both scenes, the father’s presence is made manifest thundering in the heavens, both scenes take place above a significant body of water, in both scenes the son’s truest identities are affirmed by the Father, and in both scenes the sons are commissioned to reclaim the kingdom home that was rightfully theirs! Wow! And if Jesus own vocation flowed out of his being a beloved son of the Father, how much more would that same truth apply to you and I today! Dear friends, ask your Father today, who am I … who have you created me to do be… and let the rest take care of itself. Whether we are conscious of it or not, I believe this scene in particular stirs our post-Christian culture. For we have today drifted quite far from this Christian understanding of identity and vocation. No longer possessing the knowledge of a loving Father who created us, we instead tie ourselves in knots trying to discover our own identity, to forge our own identity from scratch, desperate to be both authentic and yet to be the same as everyone else. Sadly, we today have it all backwards, believing that our identity flows from our vocation, and that our self worth is tied to ‘what we do’. We forget that our identity and worth are already given to us, and that a loving Father cares more about our decisions than even we do ourselves. Perhaps it is for this reason that the Lion King stirs us and moves us and reverberates in the caverns of our culture. For the tender echo of Mufasa’s “remember” is not just an invitation for Simba … but an invitation for our culture that has forgotten who we are and the glory that awaits us.”
(Note – covers of original Disney music were used in this episode: ‘This Land’ and ‘King of Pride Rock’ are covers, while a snippet of the original ‘The Circle of Life’ used. Original composer is Hans Zimmer. Thanks for Br Michael MGL for supplying flute cover for ‘This Land’)