by Elder Johnny Kim
Even as one who hardly watches television and rarely makes it out to the movies, even I couldn’t help but to notice the exploding fascination with zombies in pop culture as of late. From the aforementioned television shows and movies to the various zombie conventions and even theme parks, zombies have seemingly popped up everywhere. And as if all these things weren’t proof enough that zombies have gone mainstream, even various government agencies and organizations have embraced the fad by producing zombie-themed public service announcements in order to promote disaster preparedness among the general public! As ridiculous as it sounds, I have to admit that it’s actually an effective and brilliant marketing move on the government’s part. The average citizen may not have ever experienced large-scale natural disasters before and therefore might be unable to fully comprehend the dire consequences and fallout of such an event. But because zombies and the idea of zombie outbreaks and ensuing apocalypse have become so pervasive and popular in our entertainment and media, it turns out people might actually be more likely to have an appreciation of the gravity of at least that fictional scenario. By relating the level of preparedness needed for natural disasters with how people would prepare for the type of zombie apocalypse that they’ve surely seen in movies and on television time and time again, they are more likely to be better prepared for a very real large earthquake, blizzard, or hurricane. As ironic as it is, that just goes to show how popular zombies have become.
Traditionally, zombies are portrayed as mindless and soulless beings inhabiting corpses and otherwise lifeless bodies, usually on a quest to consume the brains of the living or to perpetuate their disease by infecting the living with their bite. Of course the prospect of living in an apocalyptic world and being surrounded by hordes of zombies, or the walking dead as they’re often referred, is a fictional fantasy that we’ll never encounter in reality.
Or perhaps we already have?
Before you parents fire off a concerned email to Pastor Patrick, for the record, I have not been teaching your youth about zombies. But for Lumos youth Friday night Bible studies, we have been going through Ephesians and we recently learned in chapter 2 of the epistle that Paul makes mention of those who are “walking” according to the course of this world and “living” in the lusts of the flesh, yet “dead” in their trespasses and sins. Walking and alive and yet dead; sounds familiar, right? While we might not ever find ourselves surrounded by zombies, spiritually speaking the “walking dead” are already all around us. The truth is the one who is without Christ is dead. Not only does Paul refer to this truth in Ephesians 2:1-3, but it’s a truth that he echoes in Colossians 2:13 as well. For the one who is without Christ, their cheerful disposition, happy demeanor, and other external evidences of being physically alive hide the fact that internally, they are spiritually dead. Our sinful nature and propensity to love worldly pleasures and vices make us dead to God and His goodness, His righteousness, and His holiness.
The loud sobs and wails of loved ones will never wake the one who lies dead inside the coffin. Pounding on the casket in grief and sorrow will never rouse the one inside to life. In the same way that the physically dead are completely and utterly incapable of walking, talking, or reacting in any way to anything, the spiritually dead are unable to respond to the facts of Christ and the gospel. In other words it’s all sinners who, because of their sinful nature, are unable to respond to the facts of Christ and the gospel. The most accurate knowledge of God’s character and the most passionate appeal to consider His righteousness and His holiness cannot rouse a sinner to glorify God. As sinners, we have as much capability to do that by ourselves as a corpse has to get up and walk around. We first need to be brought to life by an intervening external force. And not just by any force, but by the most powerful force there is. God is the only force sufficiently powerful for this miraculous task; power that was proven when He raised Christ from the dead (Ephesians 1:19-20). As those who were once dead but now brought to life in Him, we preach the gospel of sovereign grace to those who remain spiritually dead. While dead, there is nothing anyone can do but to acknowledge their “deadness” and to beg for God’s grace and mercy and to rely on His goodness to save them and to bring them to life in Christ. We preach this gospel to the dead who are around us, and indeed they are all around us, as in Matthew 9:37. However, not only are they spiritually dead, but they also face an inevitable eternal and permanent death.
As Paul uses the analogy of death to portray our former spiritual lives apart from Christ, the analogy also describes the certainty of eternal and permanent death that awaits all sinners after living in this present world. So inevitable is this eternal death for all sinners, that Paul points out we might as well be considered dead, though technically we are alive for whatever brief moment our lives will last here on earth (James 4:14). Apart from Christ and the salvation that is only obtained in Him, the only possible and assured outcome that awaits us all is an eternal death in hell. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. Because of our trespasses and sins, and ultimately our sinful nature, we were like “dead men walking”. But the good news is that God made us to be alive in Christ because of His rich mercy and great love (Ephesians 2:4-5). God, through Christ, not only makes us to be spiritually alive in this present life, to be able to live according to His commands and to please Him and bless Him by glorifying Him with our lives, but He also makes us to be alive in Christ forever. We have the hope of eternal life with Him beyond this life in the life to come. Those who are in Christ are truly alive in every sense of the word, now and forever.
I’ve found that the challenge of preaching these specific truths to the youth is that outwardly, they are seemingly the furthest from being “dead”. With vibrant attitudes and being full of energy, if anything, the youth are the liveliest affinity group in the church. Walk into the youth room (especially after soda, snacks, and candy) and the last word that comes to mind is “dead”. Similarly, youth being as young as they are, have that many more potential years of life here on this earth as compared to older adults. Death is often the furthest thing from their minds as it is from our minds when we think about youth. Yet all that doesn’t change the internal and spiritual reality that without Christ, they too are dead in the way that the Apostle Paul describes. They too are in desperate need of the One who can bring them to life, in this present life and in the life to come. It’s a sobering reality that I’ve come to be reminded of in youth ministry. The reality that as far off as it seems, I am surrounded by “walking dead” for every youth who has not yet been made alive in Christ.
I encourage you to consider your own lives and see that the same reality holds true for you as well. In our schools, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, and even in our own families, the sobering reality is that we can all find that we are surrounded by the “walking dead”. We shouldn’t let others’ worldly successes, temporal happiness, and comfortable affluence betray the fact that they are anything but alive absent Christ. If we stop to consider those around us who do not have life in Him, then we will realize that we are all constantly surrounded by those who are really dead and dying. Let us be bold and clear and constant in the way we preach the life-giving gospel of Christ to all those around us.
