Zombie Faith

Zombie Faith

Matthew 27:51-53

Women of the Bible Series slide

Good morning and welcome to worship! It is good to be back in the sanctuary with you this week.

As we near the end of our corporate worship today, I wanted to remind you about the meal packing event going on immediately after worship! We will be packing thousands of meals to be distributed across the nation and the world. I know, it sounds like a lot – and it is… but it will not take as long as you might think when we all work together.

Now, I don’t want to start this sermon without acknowledging the amazing job Esme and Priscilla did over the past couple of weeks while I was out of the pulpit. They were able to bring you Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany in a way that I never could. I am so proud of both of them and I can’t wait to see what God does in and through them in the months and years ahead.

I’ve had some ask about my “vacation,” so here is what I did. 2 weeks ago, I took off and went to Nacogdoches, TX and stayed at Diver’s Depot to study, then on Saturday and Sunday I spent hours taking written tests and teaching for an examiner – both above and below the water, and I am now a PADI SCUBA Instructor. Then, last week I spent the week working on and put together sermon topics and scriptures through January and beyond, and I’ll just give you a heads up… we are going to be looking at more of the women of the Bible through December. But today, with it being Halloween Weekend, I am jumping out of the Great Women of the Bible Series and we are going to look at…

ZOMBIE FAITH

Turn with me in your Bible to Matthew 27:51-53 and what may be one of the strangest passages you will likely ever read!

What we are about to read is some of what was happening as Jesus died on the Cross. OK, are you ready?

Here we go…

Matthew 27:51-53 (NLT)

At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart, and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead. They left the cemetery after Jesus’ resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people.

Let’s pray.

VIDEO

Sermon Slide

Maybe that’s not an actual video from the days of Jesus’ death and resurrection, but for some reason, when I read this passage of tombs opening and dead people walking out and wandering around Jerusalem, I have all these images of some kind of Zombie Apocalypse.

Whether it’s Plague of the Zombies, the The Living Dead series of movies, White Zombie, the Walking Dead series, or I Am Legend with Will Smith, Hollywood has conditioned us to think of certain things when we think of the dead coming out of their tombs.

Now, as we look at this passage, I dare say that this is the first time most, if not all of you have ever heard a sermon on this passage. In fact, it is the first time in over 20 years of pastoral ministry that I have ever preached a sermon on this passage and it may be the last. There is a reason there aren’t many sermons out there on this passage from Matthew. These just aren’t those warm and fuzzy verses with an easy lesson. Amen?!

So, what does this passage mean to us? I want us to look at a couple of different options of what this Zombie apocalypse of biblical proportions may mean, and how we can apply it to our life today.

First, is reading it as a literary device. Christian New Testament Scholar Mike Licona explained the story as a literary idiom. He and other scholars like him think that it was simply a rhetorical literary device used to provoke an emotional response from the reader… you know using words to elicit the WOW factor of the event of Jesus’ death and resurrection. When we say it’s “raining cats and dogs” we don’t mean dogs and cats are falling from the sky, but you all know exactly what is happening outside. However, when someone 500 years from now reads that “on October 28, 2022, it was raining cats and dogs,” they may wonder what kind of unnatural phenomenon we were experiencing.

That’s what Professor Licona is saying about this passage. The dead weren’t really walking around Jerusalem, but it was an expression that the people understood.

So, what would that understanding mean for our faith?

Profound Event

That the event of Jesus death and resurrection is a profound and life changing event. It is an event that is so profound that mere words and descriptions alone cannot fully explain the meaning behind the statement, instead other additional literary devices are needed to help us see and understand the magnitude of this event.

That works, but not all scholars agree with that statement. In fact, some reject it completely and some take a little more nuanced approach buy saying that “the personality of the bodies” of the saints rose and showed themselves. I call this the Ghost Apparition Appearance theory. The bodies didn’t really rise, just the personality of the body rose… like a ghost floating around until they ascended to heaven with Jesus.

I’m not going to try to force some life altering application with this, I’m just sharing what others have said about this passage.

The third explanation I’m going to share about this passage is what I might call Bodily Resuscitation. This is the interpretation of this passage that leads us to think of the Zombie images and the living dead walking around Jerusalem. This is where I want to spend the rest of our time as we consider this passage… not as a Zombie Apocalypse, but as a picture of what is to come for us all.

As we look all through the New Testament, we see many resuscitations. Jesus raising Jarius’ daughter and the story of Lazarus. There’s the story of Peter raising Tabitha in Acts 9 and then, One of my favorite stories is found in Acts 20:7-12.

Acts 20:7-12

On the first day of the week, we gathered with the local believers to share in the Lord’s Supper. Paul was preaching to them, and since he was leaving the next day, he kept talking until midnight. The upstairs room where we met was lighted with many flickering lamps. As Paul spoke on and on, a young man named Eutychus, sitting on the windowsill, became very drowsy. Finally, he fell sound asleep and dropped three stories to his death below. Paul went down, bent over him, and took him into his arms. “Don’t worry,” he said, “he’s alive!” Then they all went back upstairs, shared in the Lord’s Supper, and ate together. Paul continued talking to them until dawn, and then he left. Meanwhile, the young man was taken home alive and well, and everyone was greatly relieved.

Luke wrote it so matter of factly… Paul preached for hours and he was so boring poor young Eutychus fell asleep and fell to his death. But don’t worry, Paul raised him from the dead and he went home alive and well… and everyone was greatly relieved.

Sermon Slide

It kinda gives me hope, that as long as I don’t bore people to sleep and them fall to their death, I’m doing better than Paul. Amen.

But there is something more to see about this than the dead walking among us.

In each of the passages the dead are raised to walk, but they will not remain physically alive forever. Each and everyone of these, whether it’s Lazarus, or Tabitha, or Eutychus, or the saints of Jerusalem - they will face another physical death. That is why I make the distinction of Resuscitation, not resurrection. I am now trained to teach First Aid, CPR, AED, and Emergency Oxygen providers. With that training is the reality that some day I may need to use the skills to save a life, to revive, to resuscitate someone. I won’t resurrect them, I will resuscitate them. To be resurrected means that they will never face another physical death, to resuscitate means that ultimate death is still inevitable.

You and I must face a physical death. Our baptism is symbolic of the fact that we are buried with Jesus in Baptism and raised to walk in newness of life.

Yes, Jesus makes us new. Yes, when we come to Christ we are a new creation and a part of God making all things new. But, we will still face a physical death. We can’t get beyond the reality of death except for this fact, there is life beyond our natural death.

Here’s another thing about today’s Scripture.

As we read this passage about the death of Jesus, the earth-shaking event of Jesus’ death opened the tombs, almost as a foreshadowing of the opening of the tomb of Jesus that happened 3 days later.

Just a week before, Jesus had walked down the road from Bethany, a road that leads through a cemetery – a road that some of us have walked!

While he was travelling down this road he was asked to keep his followers quiet, and what did he reply, “if they are silent, the these rocks will cry out in worship.” Again, a foreshadowing of the event to come… the day that as he died and was then risen from the grave… a day that the rock tombs were opened and those who were dead became alive and praised him.

The resurrection of Jesus was a miraculous event. It was a dynamic event. Jesus resurrection changed everything!

As written so eloquently by the 20th Century author H.H. Halley,

“The earthquake, the rocks rent, and the tombs opened, were God’s salute to the Conquering Saviour. The rending of the veil in the temple, was God’s own proclamation that in the death of Christ the barrier between God and man disappeared. The risen saints, were God’s evidence and guaranty that the power of death had been broken.” (Halley’s Bible Commentary)

In this moment of Jesus death and resurrection, we are reminded that there is life beyond death. We are reminded that Christ has conquered death – as Paul writes, “O death, where is your sting, O grave, where is your victory.”

In Christ death no longer has power over us.

I love the way the People New Testament Commentary puts it…

“Already in the death of Jesus the eon-changing, dead-raising power of God breaks in.” (Peoples New Testament Commentary.)

So, here is my question for you. How has God raised you to life? I know, you weren’t dead and in the tomb, but once we were dead in our sins before Jesus raised us to newness of life.

What does your Zombie Faith look like? You, as a follower of Christ, should be walking around as those who were once dead and are now alive.

So, how, and to what, has God raised you to life?