The opening of the new muppet movie this weekend has reminded me how much I loved the muppets as a kid.  Specifically how much do I [still] love all those 80s fantasy movies involving Jim Henson creations.  There is so much heart one can capture with muppets and actors in rubber suits that just can't be replicated by CGI.

The other thing I love about those 80s kids movies is that they were so not afraid to just be ... weird ... and kind of dark.  Kids movies today are so tame by comparison.  I mean, lets take The Dark Crystal, in which the young Jen has to restore a shard to a broken crystal to heal a world about to be overtaken by the evil "Skeksis."  He receives his instructions from the mystic Aurghra, who tells him the healing of the crystal will be "the end of something...or the beginning."

This whole end-is-the-beginning thing turns up as well in The Neverending Story, when the child Bastion has to create a new world of imagination when the old world of Fantasia is all but totally destroyed.  In fact, the film's main theme is that endings and beginnings flow into one another in an "neverending story."

This abstract concept of endings and beginnings being one and the same thing is quite relevant to this season of Advent.  The season of Advent begins our church year.  While it might intuitively make sense to begin our celebration of the Christian year with, say, the story of creation, we instead begin the Christian year reflecting on the promised return of Christ.  We begin with the end, the eschaton ("last things").

I think one of the reasons the Christian year begins the way it does is because--according to our faith--endings are indeed new beginnings.  We confess faith in the resurrection of our bodies and new life after death.  And we also confess faith in the new Kingdom of Chris which will be ushered in at the conclusion of human history.  Indeed, one of our readings from this coming week promises that, after the end of the world, there will be made a New Heaven and a New Earth (2 Peter 3:13).  Ending leads to new beginning.

What's more, the conjunction of endings and beginnings applies not only on a grand cosmic scale but also to our personal lives.  We pray for God to bring healing and renewal to our lives throughout this season of Advent.  Healing, change, and renewal from God, though, will inevitably entail that we let go of some parts of our lives which might be hindering full experience of communion with God or with the people we love in our lives.

The coming of Christ to bring new life into the world and into our lives is dramatic and powerful.  It can also be frightening as it calls us to change and growth.