Zombies.

Hungry with an insatiable appetite for living flesh, they roam alone and in hordes, looking and listening for prey. They have no regard for their own safety. No regard for life. No compassion. No relationships, not even with each other.

They just want to feed. They want to consume. They are all hunger.

As such, they are a grotesque statement on humanity. On culture: mindless consumming.

Zombie stories also tend to reflect poorly on the lives of people who aren’t yet infected. The ones who are ostensibly still “alive.” They live in fear. They look out for only their own interests. They do horrible things to each other in an effort to control. The commit “inhumane” acts.

Yet, another grotesque statement on humanity. No one seems to be alive. No one seems to be human anymore.

In our world, currently obsessed with Zombies, Paul’s words to the Ephesians should stand out: rise from the dead.

He’s speaking here in the language of resurrection, and yet… he’s not speaking directly of resurrection. He’s speaking here about how we are to live. We are to live like those who are alive—alive not in darkness, but in the light.

If we’re going to be citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we can’t act like we’re citizens of the other place. How we live matters.

Not because we can save ourselves by our fine upstanding moralism, but because we are sons and daughters of the resurrection. We’ve been raised with Christ. The power of the resurrection is coursing through our veins.

So, we should act like it.

And…we’re also the billboards of resurrection. We witness to the wondrous love of God with our lives. When people look at us, knowing that we’re Christians, we can either reflect well on God or not.

Paul was writing to the Ephesians who were living in a pagan world. If they lived like the pagans, or worse the pagans, how were they witnessing to the resurrection? Why would their neighbors be compelled to follow Jesus?

How will everyone else see resurrection if we don’t rise from the dead ourselves?