Zombie’s scare the bejeebies out of me!

Our culture’s appetite for zombies is seemingly endless. We have zombie books, games, TV shows and movies. I counted the release of over 150 zombie movies in the last ten years, that is over one zombie movie per month. Zombie is a relatively new word of African origin, which over time has come to simply mean the walking dead. Although the English word zombie is fairly new, the concept of the walking dead can be traced from antiquity.

The first zombie movie I ever tried to watch was the 1978 horror film, Dawn of The Dead by George A. Romero, which was a sequel to his “Night of The Living Dead”. I had nightmares about that movie for years and I’m sure I am not alone on that account. Recently, a preview for a show about a zombie apocalypse or something like that came on TV and I had to turn it off because it scared me. Yep, my wife will tell you that I am a wimp when it comes to scary movies, games or TV shows. If you have read this far, I hope you are asking what could zombies possibly have to do with Christianity? Let me explain.

Recently, my Pastor preached a couple of messages, both of which got me to thinking about zombies although he did not mention zombies. One message was from Mark Chapter 5 about the man with an unclean spirit, that lived and wondered among the tombs in a graveyard. The other was from Matthew Chapter 11 in which John the Baptist sends two of his followers to Jesus to confirm that Jesus is the One all of Israel is looking for to deliver them. To which Jesus responds: “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”

At the heart of both Mark 5 and Matthew 11 are references to lost people. The man living among the tombs literally and figuratively represents someone that is dead. All the sicknesses Jesus mentions in Matthew 11 are literally and figuratively ailments which eventually lead to premature death. Lost people are like “the walking dead”, in essence we were all zombies, nothing more than an animated corpse, before we come to know Christ.

And someone being lost and eternally living as the walking dead, living in the torment of a real eternal hell scares me far more than some imaginary ghoulish zombie creature men can conjure up in our foolish minds.

Jesus can raise the dead from death unto life, which is why he told Nicodemus in John 3:7” you must be born again.

John 5:24 KJV
[24] Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.