Why do so many of us watch zombie films? I remember the first time I saw Night of the Living Dead. It was much scarier than the Halloween movies. Maybe it has something to do with the idea that the zombies “won’t stay dead”.

When I read the story of the Raising of Lazarus, I can’t help but get goose bumps; the hair even raises on the back of my neck. It really is a spooky story and like a good horror film, it both fascinates and repels me.

Indeed, John 11:1-45 reminds me more of a zombie film than a typical miracle story. Jesus’ behavior is not only downright insensitive it verges on diabolical. First, Jesus, who cured others, refuses to cure Lazarus when he hears that his close friend is ill. He insists that Lazarus must suffer this fate so that the disciples will believe.

Then, once he realizes that Lazarus is dead, he takes his time getting to Bethany, actually letting Lazarus rot in the tomb for four days. Finally when he does arrive, Jesus refuses to go to the tomb and mourn with the relatives and acts disgusted by their outpourings of grief. The story has becomes so morbid at this point, that when Jesus actually does raise Lazarus from the dead, I can’t help but picture Lazarus as some sort of zombie or mummy from one of those horror films made in the thirties.

Maybe this is just the sort of impression that John, the author, is trying to create in order to expose our misconceptions regarding life and death. For tragically, death has so much power over our perception of reality that we assume that all of life and the entire creation, are subject to it. That is why, when Jesus tells the people to take away the stone covering Lazarus’ tomb, Martha, the sister of Lazarus objects, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”

Likewise, I can’t help but perceive Lazarus as a zombie because I too assume he is dead and rotting in the tomb. Death is so repugnant to us that our immediate reaction is to keep it sealed up as tightly as possible.

Jesus, however, is not concerned with the stench. On the contrary, he is angered by all the mourning and weeping at Lazarus’ tomb. After all the time they have spent with Jesus, Mary and Martha still believe in death and allow it to control their perception of reality. In fact, by mourning for Lazarus, all those gathered for the funeral, have unwittingly sealed his fate, actually condemning him to death. Placing him in the tomb is in effect an act of expulsion from the land of the living.

Not realizing how warped our perception can be, we’re tempted to side with Mary and Martha who are perturbed that Jesus didn’t save Lazarus from this fate, assuming that if Jesus really loved him, he wouldn’t have let Lazarus die.

When Jesus challenges this thinking, Martha assumes she understands: “I believe in the resurrection at the end of the age.” But this too is a denial of life in the here and now.

Jesus, however, never once refers to Lazarus as dead. From the very beginning he claims that Lazarus is asleep and will be awakened. In fact when Jesus sees that they have gone ahead and sealed Lazarus in a tomb, it is then that Jesus weeps. This is not the fate that God intends for us.

Since we, however, live our lives in fear of death, always trying to keep our distance from it, we participate in a world order which may even perceive eternal life as a threat to its security. This is why, when the authorities hear that Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead, they decide to kill him.

For instance in the 70s and 80s thousands of people who in any way challenged the regimes of certain South American dictators were kidnapped and killed, and their bodies disposed of, eliminating all evidence of their existence. By removing all trace of them from the land of living, they were silenced forever and no longer a threat to those in power. Family members of the “disappeared” were often prevented from even mentioning their names. [Link to Wikipedia on Forced Disappearance]

Jesus, on the other hand, did not stay put. His resurrection forever broke the power that any and all executioners wield over life and death.

Whenever we seal a dead body up in a tomb, we live in fear that somehow it may not stay put. Movies like Night of the Living Dead vividly express our fear of those we have intentionally or unintentionally excluded from the land of the living.

That is why Jesus says to the mourners, “Unbind him and let him go!” In that moment Jesus frees not only Lazarus, but all of us from the control that death has over our lives. He does this not by rescuing us from the grip of death, because that would maintain death as an independent reality still to be feared, and would actually increase its power. Instead he cries with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” awakening Lazarus from his zombie thralldom. Jesus demonstrates that for now on death, and those who use it to maintain their authority, no longer have power over human life.

We see this earlier in the story, when the disciples try to prevent Jesus from returning to Judea for the funeral because there are people out to kill him, he replies, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” As long as we live our lives in fear of death, we will stumble around like zombies in the night.

 

For this very reason, Jesus invites us to join him in a reality in which death has no role. When he says:

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus turns our mistaken understanding of life and death on its head. So that all the zombies, finally revealed as products of a world which lives in fear of death, are evaporated in an expanding awareness of the power of resurrected life.  -Sue Wright