Moreover, the scariest part about zombies is not their predatory quickness or their cruel intelligence, but rather zombies are frightening because of their numbers and because they are relentless and unstoppable. One zombie is easy to dispatch. They are stupid, plodding creatures. Slow enough for anyone to overcome when they are alone. No, zombies are dreadful in large numbers because they can overwhelm even the most experienced and skilled fighter. In this respect, zombies are a perfect metaphor for death itself. We can run, we can even fight for a while, but eventually death will catch and overwhelm us. Death does not need to move fast, because claiming us for itself is inevitable.
Zombies occur a handful of places in the Bible, believe it or not. But the most chilling account of zombies is found in the book of Ezekiel.
Please read Ezekiel 37:1-14
(No really, you are going to want to read this one before proceeding.)
Imagine, for a moment, what Ezekiel witnessed.
He was shown a valley full of dry bones. And God reanimated them. First, the bones gathered themselves back into skeletons. Then, sinews, organs, flesh and skin began to form within and around those skeletons. A whole army of zombies was being built before Ezekiel's eyes.
Think how horrified Ezekiel must have been. He had no reason to believe that these humanoid creatures had human souls. After all, they just stood there, silently...waiting. But then, God commanded that breath be sent into the mechanically refurbished, but lifeless, bodies. This is the turning point. Before the breath comes, the reconstituted bodies are just the walking dead. Ezekiel must have been struck with fear--to be faced with an army of zombies.
But as with so many things, God takes what we expect--death--and gives us the opposite: life. God breathes life into the zombies, giving them back their lives, complete with personalities--their very beings.
God does not make zombies. Yet, without the Breath of Life, zombies these creatures would remain. Breath (ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek) is more than just the exchange of carbon dioxide we exhale and the oxygen/nitrogen etc. mix of air we inhale. In Scripture, when God breathes into a human being (like he did with Adam and Eve), God is bestowing upon them a part of God's self...a distinct being that is one with God's own being.
The word we use today is "soul." However, I don't like using that word. The word "soul" implies--in the minds of our present day culture (because of the Victorian Era's impact on these matters) an independent form of our being. Not only independent from the physical, but also independent from God. The latter is complete rubbish. There is no part of us that is eternal apart from Jesus Christ. We are created mortal--body, mind and soul. And so if we have eternal life it is only because we inhere or abide in God.
The former is also tragically misguided. The story of the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel is clear: just as our bodies need breath in order to live, so too does our breath need a body. God resurrects the people bodily first, and only then is able to bestow the life of the soul. In the resurrection that we are promised when Christ returns, we may not get physical bodies in the way we have now. Paul says that we will put on incorruptible, spiritual bodies--whatever that means (1 Corinthians 15).
The point is that even if we are faced with inevitable death, such as a valley full of zombies coming for us, we still do not fear. We do not fear even the valley of the shadow of death because of Jesus Christ.
So this Halloween, I encourage you, just as the Bible says:
"For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you...; for God did not give us a spirit of fear, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:6-7). Like the self-discipline not to want to eat our neighbors' brains.
Halloween is about working through our fear of death, so that we can be ready for All Saint's Day. So that we can be ready for God's words promising resurrection. If we do not first fear death, then we will not know the great relief and joy of the resurrection. Halloween and All Saint's Day must come together, just as surely as we need both the Cross and the Resurrection. They are but one act, but one event.
Thanks be to God that neither life, nor death, nor un-death can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.
God be with your spirit.
Amen.
But as with so many things, God takes what we expect--death--and gives us the opposite: life. God breathes life into the zombies, giving them back their lives, complete with personalities--their very beings.
God does not make zombies. Yet, without the Breath of Life, zombies these creatures would remain. Breath (ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek) is more than just the exchange of carbon dioxide we exhale and the oxygen/nitrogen etc. mix of air we inhale. In Scripture, when God breathes into a human being (like he did with Adam and Eve), God is bestowing upon them a part of God's self...a distinct being that is one with God's own being.
The word we use today is "soul." However, I don't like using that word. The word "soul" implies--in the minds of our present day culture (because of the Victorian Era's impact on these matters) an independent form of our being. Not only independent from the physical, but also independent from God. The latter is complete rubbish. There is no part of us that is eternal apart from Jesus Christ. We are created mortal--body, mind and soul. And so if we have eternal life it is only because we inhere or abide in God.
The former is also tragically misguided. The story of the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel is clear: just as our bodies need breath in order to live, so too does our breath need a body. God resurrects the people bodily first, and only then is able to bestow the life of the soul. In the resurrection that we are promised when Christ returns, we may not get physical bodies in the way we have now. Paul says that we will put on incorruptible, spiritual bodies--whatever that means (1 Corinthians 15).
The point is that even if we are faced with inevitable death, such as a valley full of zombies coming for us, we still do not fear. We do not fear even the valley of the shadow of death because of Jesus Christ.
So this Halloween, I encourage you, just as the Bible says:
"For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you...; for God did not give us a spirit of fear, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:6-7). Like the self-discipline not to want to eat our neighbors' brains.
Halloween is about working through our fear of death, so that we can be ready for All Saint's Day. So that we can be ready for God's words promising resurrection. If we do not first fear death, then we will not know the great relief and joy of the resurrection. Halloween and All Saint's Day must come together, just as surely as we need both the Cross and the Resurrection. They are but one act, but one event.
Thanks be to God that neither life, nor death, nor un-death can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.
God be with your spirit.
Amen.
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