Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The Walking Dead

I've tried on more than one occasion -(two is more than one)- to watch the show, The Walking Dead. The first time I attempted to watch, I caught a scene in which what was, I assume, a "Walker" stuck in a well. Someone attempts to pull him out, and well, let's just say, it didn't end well for the already dead guy. Things (a.k.a body parts) came apart and I turned the channel. The second try was just this week, but after about ten seconds of it, I found a "Friends" episode that was much more "lively" and entertaining. I looked at a few things on the website for the show. There's an app that you can get that takes your photo and shows what you would look like as a "walker." There's also a quiz you can take to see how long you'd survive a zombie apocalypse. I admit, I took it. (FYI I'd make it a week and a half.)

The Walking Dead. An oxymoron of sorts, unless you believe in these TV zombies.
But spiritually speaking, there's much truth in the title.

Scripture says in Ephesians 2:1-3-  "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts."

Kind of sounds like The Walking Dead, especially the part about the cravings of our flesh......at least from the little I read about it and saw on TV.

Before Christ comes in our lives, we are "Walkers" in one sense. One version of the passage above even speaks of how we walked habitually in our deadness because of sin.
When sin entered into this world, we became dead, and death became our inheritance. 

But there's good news. Ephesians 2:4 tells us "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved."

Romans 6:11-14- "In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.  Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.  Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.  For sin shall no longer be your master,  because you are not under the law, but under grace."

There's so much "good stuff" in those Romans verses, I just couldn't leave any out. 

So. We are dead in our sin. Walking Dead.

But by grace, through faith in Christ, we are dead to sin. Walking Dead.

Either way, we are Walking Dead. It just depends on what we are dead to or dead in. Those little prepositions change everything.


Today in class we were discussing space, and how you must have the proper equipment or you couldn't survive in space. Someone said "you'd die." Another student asked, "How much dead would you be?" I tried to get out of the morbidity of the conversation, but we did chuckle over his comment.

Dead is dead. There's not "kind of" or "sort of." D-E-A-D. Dead. 

We are all one or the other.
Brought from death to life. 
Or Brought from death to death.


Zombies walking among other zombies.