Since the 1950s there has been an American fascination with zombies. Beginning with the Night of the Living Dead movie, continuing up to the Thriller music video, and captivating a new generation with the Resident Evil video games - the zombie is a popular icon in this nation. With its grotesque image of rotting flesh, bulging eyes, a lumbering gait, and an appetite for brain, the zombie is a miserable creature. Dead yet walking around in our world.
What a lot of people don't realize is that there are many zombies living amongst us today. Sure, the rotting flesh is invisible, the hunger for brain is replaced with french fries, yet the real zombies of this world are nevertheless active among us. They can be our next door neighbors, our co-workers, even our fellow church parishioner.
Ephesians 2 says that those living for the passions of the flesh and the desires of the body are children of wrath, that they are dead in their trespasses as children of disobedience. In fact we were conceived in sin and subsequently born dead according to Psalm 51. Having been born of the flesh we are bound to be nothing more than flesh (rotting flesh in fact) if we are left to ourselves.
Dead in sin, walking around for 80 years or so in a futile attempt to satisfy ourselves...what is the hope for the zombies of Earth?
Back to Ephesians 2...
"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
The good news is that God has mercifully decided to send his son that we might become alive. Not because we were worth his time, but because he was gracious and eager to reveal his glory. Through the sacrifice of Christ, in the work of the Spirit, according to the sovereign choice of God, we are given new life - born again. I grew up hearing the term "born again" in my mothers vocabulary and yet I had no idea of where it was from in Scripture.
Read the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3. It is a powerful passage. Understanding the need I had for divine CPR to be performed on my stillborn soul (and that it was the mysterious will of the Spirit blowing where it wanted that made my life possible, not anything in me) was a moment that changed my thinking in a radical way. I hope it might have the same effect on you. If you don't have a saving faith in Christ, realize that you can. Keep your eyes on the cross and ask God for regeneration with the deepest longing of your soul. If you sincerely desire an eternal relationship with him, you will be gifted to believe. If you are already a Christian, viewing the process of salvation in this way might help you understand the magnificent role that is played in the act by God's grace.
So next time you watch a zombie movie remember that there really are zombies, they walk among us. If you have been saved from continuing as one by our merciful Father, then labor to complete you role in his plan by spreading the good word of new life to the zombies - don't run from them.
Aw man. I thought this was actually going to be a post about zombies.
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