Those old black and white movies could scare you to
death.
They would have you all curled up in a little ball on the couch, your head almost
completely covered by a pillow, with just enough room for one eye to peek out and see what
was going on.
I got my biggest scares from the Zombie movies. There were a lot of them.
"Curse of the Zombie," "Revenge of the Zombie"
the "Zombie's Wife," they just went on and on and on.
I think I liked those movies, perhaps better than some others, because they were one of
the few places where I could see black faces on the television screen.
They all usually were in an island setting. The Zombie master, the person making the
zombies, and the people being turned into zombies, all were people of color.
The heroes, they were more pigmentally challenged.
The zombie concept was that people could be brought back to life after they were dead.
They could walk, groan a little but...they were far from being human. They
were aptly called, "The Walking Dead."
Pieces of them would occasionally fall off. They could not make a love connection.
And in general, they were pretty foul to be around. The Zombies were pretty
scary creatures...and worse yet, since they were amongst the few roles played by people of
color, they looked like me.
The biggest problem Zombies had was they did not realize they were dead. When that little
flicker of humanity deep inside them finally did make that connection, that is when a
Zombie really grieved. They hated being caught between the grave and life.
Sometimes at school we would play Zombies. Naturally, being of color, I got to play
the Zombie. My more fair-complexioned playmates got to run and screech as I walked
stiff-legged, arms-extended, babbling, eyes-wild after them. That is the way it
reeled off at the movies, and life imitated art in the playground.
That game grew real old, real quick.
Then Saturday afternoon television shifted from 1940's monster movies to 1940's
"Tarzan" movies, my cinematic experience was not improving but the zombie games
ceased.
As I was reading this week's scripture, my mind wandered back to those days of playing
Zombie.
It reads:
Ephesians 2:1-10
2:1 You were dead through the trespasses and sins
2:2 in which you once lived, following the course of this
world, following the
ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at
work among those who are
disobedient.
2:3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our
flesh, following the
desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children
of wrath, like
everyone else.
2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love
with which he loved us
2:5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us
alive together
with Christ--by grace you have been saved--
2:6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the
heavenly places in
Christ Jesus,
2:7 so that in the ages to come he might show the
immeasurable riches of his
grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and
this is not your own
doing; it is the gift of God--
2:9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
2:10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ
Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
I had one of those epiphanies, that occasionally jump up and smack me across the back of
the head, like a friend in a fit of pique who after five explanations, still
could not get a particular point they were making through my thick skull.
As my eyes widened to proper Zombie width, I realized at one point of my life I
played a zombie, but there was a time in my life, I was a zombie...and I did not even
realize it.
For like all of us, I was dead through my trespasses and sins. But I was still
walking through life. Doing what I thought were good deeds and having a good time.
But I was dead and did not even know it. I was a zombie. Walking dead.
There was no hope for zombies. Once you were "walking dead" the only
relief came in being made totally dead. I am not sure exactly of how that was done.
I keep thinking silver bullets and stakes but ...that probably was for two other monsters,
whose lairs I visited back in those days.
I was not a zombie by myself. We all have been zombies at one time or another.
As the scripture says following the ways of the world. The directions of the
flesh. That's right you were ...and I am using the past tense hopefully and
prayerfully..once a zombie.
But we neither needed a stake or a silver bullet to change our state. God brought us
from the dead to the living with grace and mercy. We could not change our zombie
state. Our parents could not de-zombie us. Nor could our mates, our brothers,
sisters or even our preachers.
Only God could change us from dead men walking, to reborn men and women talking.
Telling all the good news of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior.
For when God by grace changed us from Zombies into living creatures, He raised us up with
his son Jesus Christ. Prepared us to see the glory of heaven.
There was nothing in the movies that suggested a zombie could save themselves. They
realized the agony that they were in, caught between the living and the dead. Unable
to really walk comfortably in either world.
Before we were saved by grace through faith, we had an equally uncomfortable walk.
Walking through the world, being a part of it, until we set our eyes and focus on
Jesus, and through accepting Him as our Savior and repenting of our sins, God stepped in
with a double portion of grace and said we would be walking dead no longer. The
stain of being a zombie was lifted.
Did we have the power to effect this change. Not on our strongest, most wise day.
We only could go on existing in a zombie state. God, through his grace and
mercy, now has allowed us to live in a saved and sanctified state.
Nothing good ever came of a zombie. At the end of the movie they were dead dead.
But all us zombies, we too died, in sin, but we have been cleaned up and resurrected
through the blood of Jesus and by the grace of God.
I stopped playing zombies in sixth grade. But God has transformed me from being a
zombie for eternity.
Are you walking dead this morning? Let God by his grace transform you from a walking
dead Zombie to an alive-and-well follower of Christ..
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight
of Lord my rock and my salavation.".
