"Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life."There are two songs by two long serving Christian bands that I was reminded of while reading. The first is a new song by Newsboys: Save Your Life, specifically the line in the refrain "If you surrender, you will live." The other is an older one by Audio Adrenaline: Some Kind Of Zombie. The whole of this song fits the idea of dying to ourself, our sinful nature, our Old Adam.
Lewis says the same thing a couple times in his book.
"They [the world] keep on killing the thing that He [Jesus] started: and each time, just as they are patting down the earth on its grave, they suddenly hear that it is still alive and has broken out in some new place. No wonder they hate us."Sounds a lot like a zombie scene out of a classic monster movie. Its midnight vista of an old and overgrown graveyard, complete with fog and a full moon. The camera pans to a freshly dug grave. The view zooms in on the tombstone to read the name. As it focuses, a gnarled and ashen fist burst out of the dirt. Slowly the occupant of the grave unburies themselves. Free of their earthen prison, they trudge off camera, mumbling something. Cool? Scary? Unbelievable? A good metaphor for Christianity? Exciting?
Wait? How can zombies, which is a bit of voodoo myth, be a Christian metaphor? The quote from Lewis should make it obvious, as does the song from Audio Adrenaline. But what Paul wrote in Romans is better.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11)Christians are metaphorical zombies. Prior to the infusing, or infecting as Lewis would say, of the Holy Spirit, we were dead. Dead to God. Dead to humanity. Dead to ourselves. We were a worthless pile of self-centered humanity. Then Jesus came along and "bewitched" us. He offered to bring us back to life. And not just any life, but one different, better, than our old one.
But we cannot remain independent if we want to allow Him to change us. By relinquishing control in this one area, we submit ourselves to God's will almost as slaves. Almost.
Slaves, and zombies for that matter, in common understanding have absolutely no freedom. As a slave you have no rights, no voice, no power. You are not a person, you are property. As a zombie even more so, since you are not even alive. You would be essentially "living" on borrowed time.
Lewis compared humans to statues in an sculptor's workshop. Like a statue, I am not truthfully Alive. Sure, I breath, and eat, and sleep, and do all the things a living creature does. But am I Alive? Perhaps the more important question is: What is Life?
I know that science has very specific answers for that question. So does philosophy. And religion. But what is the right answer?
What do I, a living creature, have that a dog, another living creature, does not have? You could probably think of a number of things, like opposable thumbs, but are those things important? Are they distinguishing enough? No, they're shallow differences. Like comparing a brand new sports car and a beat-up pickup truck. They are both automobiles. Both carry people. Both have four wheels. So, what is the difference?
Indulge my nerdness for a moment. In Star Wars, the characters that are most often heroes are people like Luke Skywalker. The catch all term for them is "Force Sensitive." They have the ability to "plug into" a celestial power source, giving them abilities far beyond the norm for mortals. Their power is genetic, but they have to train for many years to fully wield this power. There are many people in the Star Wars universe who cannot use the Force, and never will be able to. It is not something you can learn. You cannot get a "Force transplant."
Being Alive, not just having life, is similar, except in one major way. True Life is an immense power, as it is able to completely change a person from being a stupid, selfish human to a Child of God. It requires practice, patience, and sometimes skill to accomplish the most with it. Without proper care it will die. And you cannot get a simple "transplant" of life. Read that last sentence again. A "simple transplant." Unlike the example of the Force, True Life is not genetic.
What powers a sports car? Gasoline. What powers a Christian? The Holy Spirit. We can, and are, filled with the Spirit. We sometimes have to "top off the tank," which is what worship is. And gasoline is compatible with both sports cars and pick-up trucks. Just like the Spirit is compatible with all humans. But this Spirit is not from within ourselves. It is a free gift that we can allow to take over.
It is very similar to an organ transplant. Doctors have to work very hard to make sure the body does not reject the new organ after surgery. In baptism, God performs spiritual open-heart surgery. He cuts out our old, selfish, corrupt, broken heart, and inserts a new heart. One that loves Him and His creation, if we let it. But, unlike any organ transplant patient, we can choose to reject this new spiritual organ. We can choose to remain dead, instead of letting the Creator remake us as some kind of God-serving zombie. A zombie that does its master's bidding not out of coercion, but out of love. We are under the false impression that we have this nebulous thing called "free will," and that we can actually choose to let the Holy Spirit come to us. The truth is simpler: until we relinquish all free will, we have no free will. Without God's Spirit living in us, giving us True Life, empowering us to follow God's Will, without all that we are dead.
Nothing.
Powerless.
To live we must die and be willing to let God resurrect us as some kind of zombie.
(Why is it that whenever I write something theological that I end up rambling?)
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