Spiritual sociology and the zombie apocalypse

Have you ever sat in a hectic mall and people watched? It’s akin to bird watching, yet you observe the immensity in diversity of the crowds before you. They hurry to and fro in their busy lives; each with a distinctive personality and outward projection. It’s amazing how alive and invigorated they all seem, with family and friends tying them together with unseen bounds. And yet, what we perceive is not an accurate depiction of the reality before us. If life were representative of a movie, we could speculate that the world around us is an ongoing drama, perhaps with comical elements and some adventure. The cast of characters around us are each the protagonists in their own personal unfolding story lines. Such `life’ is observed within the narrative; People living and being people. I am nothing more than a simple bird watcher, a movie goer, and I sit in a dark theatre and enjoy the intrigue of this movie of life on the screen of my retina. Yet because I sit in the dark, I fail to see the reality just beyond the theatre doors: The bigger world beyond my darkened perception. God’s Word allows us to glimpse the outside world: the real world. And to see that those around us, who are like us, are not well. That something is dreadfully amiss, and that humanity is terminally ill.

The truth is, when our eyes have seen the real world, we understand that we don’t really live in a dramatic film; we appear to live more in an horror movie, a zombie apocalypse. For humanity is more than the shells that we see, we are gradients of flesh and soul homogenously blended into that which is man. And we are infected … and we are cursed. And in truth, we are the walking dead. Our physical eyes perceive physical reality and are ill suited to see the deeper spiritual overtones that play before us. I wonder how differently we’d appear in an angel’s eyes? We need God’s Word to unfurl our line of sight and to help us see ourselves as God sees us.

Imagine you were born dreadfully ill and lived your entire life in an hospital with people similarly afflicted, including staff. This would be our base line for what men are and how they feel and act. If no one can walk, we would not know that we were meant to walk and that we are capable of it. If all were blind, we would not understand that there is an entire other world accessible for those with sight. And the truth is, our world is blind. Within the Bible we see a different baseline that deviates dramatically from the existence the lost currently partake in. We see that mankind is meant to walk and to see and to live a joyous life, a true life with a happy-ever-after. C.S. Lewis wrote a brilliant expository of this dynamic called, “The Great Divorce”. Within it, we see God’s children as strong and capable. They partake of God’s creation encompassing the health God ordained for them. Yet, we also see within those pages those that reject the Source of happiness and health. These deniers of God’s glory are shadows of what they were meant to be. They are depicted as weak and transparent ghosts ebbing painfully in a darkened limbo of their own choices. And all that is good brings them discomfort and pain. A world of skeletons and rotting flesh … the spiritually dead believing that lust and greed will ease their emptiness. It is the irony of iniquity.

What does one see when he exits that theater door? What does one behold when he vacates the darkness? We are born again from dry bones to God’s living temple. And the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ dwell’s within us. The Creator of the universe, of all existence, has crafted us as a vessel for His company. Praise God, for we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). Step out of the dark and embrace reality.