Julius came racing down the stairs, tears streaming, wailing loudly. Zaniya had left him alone in the playroom upstairs, something that usually doesn’t bother him. He often plays alone, so his panic caught me off guard. When he finally calmed down, he could only say one word: zombies. I’m not sure where he picked that up, but it was clear that he was terrified that if left alone, zombies would come for him. Of course, I comforted him and explained that zombies aren’t real. Later, when I was reading in Ephesians, with zombies on my mind, I couldn’t help but see the similarities.
In Ephesians 2:1–3, Paul describes our condition before Christ: “You were dead in your trespasses and sins… following the course of this world… living in the passions of our flesh… by nature children of wrath.” Dead while walking. Controlled by the world and the flesh. Don’t tell Julius, but that sounds a little like zombies.
I haven’t watched many zombie movies, but there’s been a pattern in the ones I have seen the world gets divided into three distinct groups:
· Group 1: The zombies—infected, unaware, driven by their nature.
· Group 2: The fearful—avoiding the infected at all costs, believing survival means isolation and elimination.
· Group 3: The hopeful—convinced there’s a cure, willing to risk everything to save the infected.
Spiritually speaking, we were all once in Group 1. But God, rich in mercy, sent His Son with the cure. Now that we’ve been made alive in Christ, how do we respond to those still trapped?
Are we like Group 2—afraid of being “infected” again, praying for the downfall of the wicked, forgetting we were once the wicked? Or will we be like Group 3—believing in the cure, trusting in God’s power to redeem even the most lost, and proclaiming the good news with hope and compassion?
