I just can’t keep zombies off my mind at this time of year, Halloween and all. Even the CDC has zombies on the brain, so to speak.* Though, these days, it’s trendier to call them “the walking dead.” But, of course, they're only fictional. How else would it be? Dead people just do not get up out of their graves and walk away.
Or do they?
My thoughts on the subject undergo a bit of a shift as we round the corner from Halloween (All Hallows Eve) to the next morning: All Saints Day. That’s when we think of the true resurrection. Similar to Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), All Saints Day is when we honor our loved ones who have died.
This week’s All Saints Day scriptures (especially Revelation and 1 John) refer to the time when Jesus will return. That’s when the saints will gather in heaven, stand before the Throne of God, and we will “be like him.” This is “the resurrection” at which Martha believed she would one day see her dead brother Lazarus. But Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection.” Then, he raised her brother from his grave to rejoin the living—right then.
Throughout the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles returned dead people to life. Those previously dead people arose and walked. Perhaps the strangest resurrection episode took place during the three days Jesus was in the grave. Matthew 27:50-53 reports that immediately after Jesus died, graves opened and the “holy ones” returned to life.
They arose. But they were no zombies!
These folk were restored to their lives. After Jesus’ resurrection, these “holy ones” walked into Jerusalem and “appeared to many people.” It was a for-real “Dia de los [walking] Muertos”—another miracle awaiting that first Easter morning to take a stroll.
The power of Jesus to raise the dead is so great, it blasted out into graveyards at the moment of His death. When “the resurrection” is present, there is no waiting—people come to life!
And now? Now we’re just waiting for Him to return, to be present once more—when the power of “the resurrection” will raise all the dead on a day like no other.
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*IMAGE (and The Centers for Disease Control guide to surviving the zombie apocalypse):
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/6023/cdc_6023_DS1.pdf?download-document-submit=Download
About All Saints Day here:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/world/all-saints-day-trnd/index.html
More about Zombies here:
https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/history-of-zombies
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SCRIPTURES FOR All SAINTS DAY
(November 1, 2023)
Find them here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=166
Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12
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