Zombies

Zombies are a part of our media culture these days.  They will be around long after Halloween.  One of the most popular TV shows is "The Walking Dead."  One of the most popular movies recently is Brad Pitt's "World War Z."  Both are about heroes fighting the zombie apocalypse.  I have begun to question "Why?'  Why are zombies such a popular topic of entertainment - and I use that word loosely.  I am by no means endorsing it just wondering about it.

Two thoughts come to mind, the first about their popularity.  Could it be that the un-dead represent how we view death?  Always present, always consuming but if we are smart and quick and at times ruthless, we can beat death.  That seems to be the message I see, though again, I am not a fan of this genre.  Perhaps we are trying to tell ourselves that we can move faster than death, outsmart death (I have never seen a smart zombie portrayed) and in the end, overcome death on our own.  That may be a popular thought, but the Bible tells us we cannot escape death, no matter how many heroes do it in the movies or on TV.

My other thought about zombies is really more of an observation.  They way zombies appear in our media really could be an visual representation of what we are in our lost, "dead" spiritual state apart from Christ.  Before God's work of salvation, we are spiritually dead yet we are still walking around this world until we become fully physically dead.  In our lost state, we think about ourselves and our needs and our desires - like a zombie.  Zombies are hopeless; in our sinful, lost state we are hopeless.  If we could see our lost spiritual state in a visual way, I think we would probably look and act like a zombie.

But unlike zombies, we can have hope.  The only thing that can be done with a zombie in the movies is that they be destroyed.  But God looked upon our zombie like, dead state and found a way to bring us back to life again.  Jesus came to bring the un-dead, the sin dead to life - through a resurrection.  He died the death all of us deserve to bring a hope we could never achieve or earn.  In God's plan, spiritually dead zombies can come back to life.  That is cause for hope. 

Thanks for reading to the end of this post, even if you don't like zombies.  This Sunday we will not talk about zombies but we will talk about hope.  See you then.

for the journey...

Tim