The Zombie Within

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Romans 6:3-4

Zombies are “in” right now. Movies and YouTube videos and even television commercials are made about zombies. Thousands play the game “Zombie Apocalypse” and entire internet forums are devoted to discussing the best way to prepare for and defend from an onslaught of zombies. I even have an acquaintance, a militant anti-theist who regularly rails against “your flying spaghetti monster in the sky” God and anything supernatural yet has a genuine, serious fear of zombies. Imagine that! Dismissing the eternal and very real God of the universe as a mental aberration at best and an outright lie at worst but fearing an imaginary, fictional creature! Well, I have news for my anti-theist friend…and for you as well. Zombies are real. Yes, you read that right. See, a zombie in Voodun tradition is a person who has died, been buried, and then been brought back to life but without a soul…in other words, an animated corpse.

The zombie master then sends the undead creature out to perform his will and destroy all life it comes in contact with.

“No such thing!” you scoff.

The truth is, every Christian has a zombie within. As the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans, when we believed and received the truth of Jesus Christ, we died with Him. Like a zombie, our old nature – the old Adam, the old Eve – was buried, not in earth, but in the waters of baptism. Like a proper corpse, that old nature is supposed to stay dead and buried. But there is a zombie master, our adversary the devil. And he calls forth our inner zombie to rise from its watery grave. All too often, he succeeds.

But there is good news. Ask any fifth-grader how to destroy a zombie and he will respond, “Shoot it in the head!” That’s right…aim for the head…and the heart. Filling your mind with the transforming, living power of the word of God is the necessary ammunition for annihilating the zombie within.