When I was a kid I used to stay up on Friday nights and watch the “Friday Night Frights.” That was a show that came on after the 11:00 PM news, and featured a black & white monster movie. Most starred Boris Karloff, Bella Lugosi, or Lon Cheney as Frankenstein, Dracula, or Wolf man.
Of course there were also many B-movies from the 50’s that also were shown, which featured monsters created by radiation. They (I found out later) were statements about the Cold War and the fears people had about the end of the world coming because of a nuclear holocaust.
When I was in my early twenties, a low-budget monster movie made in the late 60’s (1968) became a “cult classic.” It was called Night of the Living Dead and when I first saw that movie I thought it had terrible acting. I was not impressed. I found the movie upsetting, more than scary, although it did a good job of making one feel claustrophobic, enclosed, and as if there was no hope.
I thought the movie about “pod people,” Invasion of the Body Snatchers, was a much better movie along a similar line. It projected how people become lifelike in appearance, but who are really just shells of who they used to be. In a way they were zombies.
I believe the symbolism of that movie was meant to show how Communism took the spirit right out of a human being, giving them nothing to live for. They just walked the globe in search of people with spirit, and when they found them, they tried to take that from them.
That becomes the comparison to zombies, as in The Night of the Living Dead, but it also can be seen in the symbolism of Dracula, who sucks the lifeblood out of people, which is their spirit and zest for life. Without their blood they become one of the living dead.
Have you noticed how many movies and television shows there are today that are using the same symbols?
We have vampire movies and a television show named Dracula. We have movies where vampires battle wolf people. We have comic book characters coming to our screens, who have all kinds of mutated powers from radiation mistakes or scientific experiments gone awry. We have fairy tale characters portrayed as if real, with witches having magical powers, and various mutants, transforming animal-humans, changing shape and causing all kinds of havoc.
Above all, we have zombies. We have more zombies than you can shake a stick at. Just the other day I was looking at the cable guide and one channel had some marathon (it seemed) of The Walking Dead (a series) and The Talking Dead (a talk show about the series).
None of this is real, but all of it is symbolic with the purpose of showing a society – OURS – as being one that has no hope. That presents us as “the living dead.”
We hire pretty, young actors to portray just how hip, sexy, and cool it is to have powers, and to changes shapes, and to find death, but never die.
Our children are being taught to see their society in a way that takes delight in death. Can you see how we are embracing self-genocide through birth control, abortion, and same sex marriage – all methods of sterilization, which if maintained for 100 years would mean our extinction? We are teaching that there is nothing you can do that will harm you. There is no soul. There is no reason to believe in anything after death.
We are promoting the end of the American way of life, as it has been for the past 100 years. It welcomes suicide, to be reborn as zombies and mindless followers of a new philosophy. It means the eradication of all religious adherence and principles.
In The Night of the Living Dead, the key word was “night.” They only came out at night. The same element of darkness applies to vampires, who shriek when the sun rises, and wolf men, who change during a full moon – which only occurs at night – then feel guilty during the day and lament an uncontrollable change coming again in just 28 days.
The symbolism had been projecting that darkness is a frightening place to be; but now, to our children, it is being passed off as beautiful, enchanting, and inviting. We are promoting, “Come into the darkness.”
And we foolishly let them go.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he said, “Come into the light!”
He said, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.” “For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly.”
When he wrote, “Sleeper, awake!”, that has the same effect as saying, “Zombie, awake!”
We sleep at night. That means zombies are the illusions of dreaming sleepers … those lying in darkness.
WAKE UP AND SEE THE LIGHT!
“Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
The reading from John tells of the blind man, from birth, who was made to see by Jesus. His eyes were opened and he saw the light of day for the first time in his life. His sight was awakened by Jesus. Another miracle of the Lord had been brought about.
However, the rest of the story is all about disbelief.
It tells of those who could not explain how a blind man could suddenly see. The Pharisees questioned people who knew him – neighbors and family – as if they were Nazi interrogators. As if they were Roman Catholic Inquisitionists. As if they were Communist Party comrade testers, seeing if anyone wanted to win a free trip to Siberia.
No one but the man who had his sight given to him cared to risk telling the authorities what happened. The blind man said Jesus rubbed mud in his eyes and told him to go wash in the local water pool.
When asked, the blind man said Jesus was a prophet; but the Pharisees were divided as to how they should handle what happened. How could he do work on the Sabbath and be from God? How could he work such a miracle if not from God?
The whole story is one about people in darkness. It is about people who are blind, with only one being touched and only one seeing the light of Christ.
The rest were zombies and vampires. Going through the motions of life, while feeding off one another’s fears.
In the reading from 1 Samuel, we see how the Lord told his prophet and servant, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, … for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
Us mortals are blind to the hearts of others. We only look at the outer shell. The only heart we know is our own. If we do not see the glory of the Lord within us, as David did, then we have not been anointed. Being anointed means the spirit of the Lord comes MIGHTILY upon us, and FROM THAT DAY ONWARD, then we are no longer blind. Then we can see the sin surrounding us and stay clear of its grasp.
We hear people talking around us. We see shapes and colors and we think someone moving around is alive and not a threat to our safety. But, we need the Holy Spirit to see the truth of what surrounds us. We need the Light of Christ to make our eyes see the way to Heaven. We need to walk towards the light and not turn back to darkness.
In this period of Lent, we have set out into the wilderness as blind people, not knowing where we will end up. We have to be able to listen for the voice of the Lord.
We have to wander upon the Spirit of Jesus and tell him that we want to see.
We have to let him spit in the dirt and rub mud on our eyes, then we need to bathe them in the water we have been sent to immerse ourselves in. We are “Sent” to find the soothing flow of God’s spirit wash over us, removing the cataracts that have made us blind to sin.
Lent is preparing us for that cleansing.
Then, we have to see the light and tell everyone who asks what we can see.
We have to wake up. We have to rise, knowing:
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
“He revives my soul.”
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.”
Amen
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