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by Chad Koons

It was October of 1983, I was 8 years old, and zombies had forced themselves upon my brain. Just let me explain, you’ll see what I mean.

I am the youngest of 3 siblings by 5 years. This meant that while my brother and sister were old enough to escape to their friends’ houses, I was stuck having to tag along with Mom and Dad wherever they went. On one particular evening, my parents and I had taken the drive into the country for yet another boring evening at Dot’s (Dot is my mom’s cousin). As my Mom had always done upon arrival, she nestled in around the kitchen table while she and Dot commenced to laugh and solve the family’s problems between sips of coffee. My dad and Dot’s husband, Larry, would quickly flee this situation, going outside to see and/or tinker on one of Larry’s old cars. So there I was, again, left to fend for myself in Dot’s living room. This wasn’t always so bad, especially since her house had acquired something that we didn’t yet have: a VCR! She also had this wondrous cabinet full of VHS tapes, the best movies of the era: E.T., Tron, and Rocky, along with a bunch of “bootlegs” mostly consisting of action and horror movies. While I was only permitted to watch the kid-friendly tapes, that evening I was feeling naughty and decided to venture deeper into the cabinet’s forbidden fruit. It was then, on that already spooky October evening, where I had popped in one of those forbidden, grainy bootlegs and scared myself half to death. It was a movie called “Night of the Living Dead.”

I remember being frozen in fear, it all looked so real! Zombies?! Dear God, why?! These were horrible killing machines, devoid of any mercy, incapable of intelligent thought, and bent solely upon one thing: the need for fresh, living flesh! And they could spread the disease! I knew chilling fear for maybe the first time in my life, and neither fields nor cemeteries would ever look the same after that. I even remember the drive home that night, staring out the car window into the fields surrounding us, not wanting Dad to slow down or even stop at stop signs. If zombies were real, which I thought they might be, surely they’d come out to attack us! To this day I may see a field at dusk and think about it.

Fast forward to today, and you know what? Zombies still manage a hold onto some part of my brain. When I think about my hateful relationship with zombies, I always come back to the same conclusion: zombies are a perversion and they are simply unnatural. Aside from the evil deeds they do, their unnatural perversion runs much deeper than the sum of their actions. Let’s be honest here, shouldn’t the dead stay, well… dead? That’s what gets me. Dead things coming back to wreak havoc is disturbing.

Here’s something else that is disturbing to realize: zombies exist, and they are coming to get people.

Since you are reading this blog post, I’m going to assume that you are a Christian or are at least interested in Christianity, which is why this topic is relevant for you. My dear friends, be warned. Christians are becoming zombies. Not the undead flesh eaters, but probably not the kind of zombie you’re thinking about, either. You’ve heard the saying, “Dead man walking, God speaks and we obey”? Like we’re zombies for the Lord or something? I disagree with this idea, despite that cool old song from Audio Adrenaline. No, it’s different from these; it’s when Christians resurrect the dead inside of them.

Here’s how it happens…

We begin our Christian life abundantly well. We are found by the Lord while we are in a helpless death state, wherein He comes and causes the old to be done away with; indeed He makes all things new. And these new things are of God. He then invites us to take on His mission alongside of Him. Read how the Apostle Paul says it in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21.

However, it’s not long until we begin to realize that this world hates us as it hated Jesus. We repeatedly experience rejection and hostility, we see the fabric of morality decay around us, and we simply do not know how to handle it. We go into shock. The world lashes out at us with wound upon wound. The devil offers us “offense,” and he awaits eagerly for us to take it.

We take offense, becoming angry, disgusted, and tired of the godlessness thriving around us. Our offense quickly spreads, reaching the old sinful nature inside of us. This old person we were before Christ is just like Frankenstein’s monster, laying there awaiting fuel for a comeback.

What happens next is straight from a horror movie. In defiance we shut down the Spirit, withhold our compassion, abandon our mission, and turn off our heart, and slowly but surely, the necrosis sets in. The old sinful nature inside of us comes roaring back to life. It comes clawing from its grave, lumbering out from its seclusion, bent on dealing damage to this world that seemingly threatens it. The zombie has risen. This righteous zombie will now weaponize the Word of God and use it without mercy.

Instead of loving and reaching the world with a message of good news and repentance, the light of the world now feels backed into a corner and leaps forward with fangs bared. We have traded love for contempt and have exchanged relationship for guerrilla warfare. I see it daily. It grieves the Holy Spirit and repels the very people whom we are called to reach. This zombie becomes its own worst enemy.

Yet there is a better way. Walk in the Spirit and you not fulfill the desires of the flesh. The lost need to see Jesus. We must put off our old self and put on the new. As we draw near to the Lord, He will draw near to us, and He will fill us, all in all. Our life will truly be hidden with God in Christ. The world will know us and experience the very powerful, life-changing presence of God emanating through our lives. The greater works of Jesus will become reality and love will take over. The Kingdom we long for will come.

Ephesians 4:17-24 says, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

1 Thessalonians 5:14-15 says, “And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.”

We know that this world is in a state of decay and that evil prevails when good men do nothing, but we must remember that we are the light of this world. Let the dead stay dead as we feed our faith, allowing nothing but Him. The last thing this world needs is a zombie invasion. Let them see Jesus in your life.

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