Humanity has a love-hate obsession that just won’t die.
We hate to contemplate our own death. Can you recall ever
thinking, “I can’t wait to go to the funeral home to make my final
arrangements”? Probably not. And we buy life insurance – just in case – all the
while hoping we’ll somehow become the exception and kick the Grim Reaper in the
bottom when he comes calling.
At the same time, death offers a strange attraction. Some
people scan the obits the first thing every morning, reasoning if they’re not
in them, then it’s okay to proceed with the day’s plans. TV news usually opens
its first minutes with the daily body count – murders, accidents, natural
disasters and other calamities.
One of movie director Woody Allen’s most famous lines is,
“I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” (I second
that motion.)
But in recent years, death has ascended to unprecedented
heights of popularity. More accurately, “un-death.”
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| We have a morbid fascination with zombies, vampires and such. |
For the life of me, I can’t understand the current
fascination with the “undead” – vampires and zombies, fictional but very
profitable entities of literary and film fancy. When I was a boy, Bela Lugosi
became a film legend portraying the vampire, Dracula. Boris Karloff also rose
to movie stardom as Frankenstein’s monster (comprised of recycled body parts), and
the Mummy. A late-night horror movie hostess was named Vampira. But there was
never the obsession we see today.
Anne Rice perhaps started things off, crafting a lucrative
career writing best-selling vampire novels. Author Stephenie Meyer trumped that
success with her four-book Twilight
series aimed at young adult readers, featuring vampires, werewolves and other
such things. Film adaptations of her books have scored big at the box office.
“The Mummy” was resurrected, so to speak, in films from 1999
to 2008. Currently, “The Walking Dead” is a popular cable TV series. And the
film, “World War Z,” starring Brad Pitt, recently opened, depicting yet another
zombie apocalypse. There’s even a horror film director named Rob Zombie.
So what’s the deal? Why, if we fear the specter of death, do
we find it so difficult to look away?
I think there’s a spiritual root to this contradiction. The
Bible states we were “dead in our
trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). In other words, without the saving
life of Jesus Christ, people are like spiritual zombies – walking around
physically, but being dead spiritually, disconnected from God their
Creator.
The good news is we don’t have to remain that way. The
passage goes on to say, “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…” (Ephesians 2:4). Another passage
declares much the same: “When you were
dead in your sins…God made you alive in Christ” (Colossians 2:13).
Without Christ, the Scriptures proclaim, we are the real
“walking dead” – breathing, hearts beating – but totally separated from God.
Jesus, Himself resurrected from the dead, is the only one that can rescue us
from spiritual death. “For it by grace
you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the
gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Once this spiritual transaction has taken place, we can
appropriate the new life given to us. “Count
yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).
