You seldom see the body, but you know it’s there. In your head there is something in that grave. There is something getting buried, and there is a moment of tension as you let go of whatever just happened and recognize that for whatever is in that grave- this is the end. And you let it go.
You bury the hatchet. You put things in the past. You let it die. And you can grieve, and you can move on, but nothing will be how it was. This is what it means to bury things. Dead means done, done means not coming back. Freedom, and release, and sorrow, and loss, all in one moment.
Do you have things in your life, that no matter how you grieve them and process them they always seem to come back? I’ve heard countless sermons about letting go, forgiveness, moving on, letting the past be the past. And the sheer number of object lessons attached to those sermons is daunting. The price is paid, a dog doesn't return to its vomit, Lot’s wife “looked back” and you saw what happened to her. I’ve held trinkets in my pocket to remind me that I’ve forgiven people, I’ve carried around heavy luggage, I’ve written things down and nailed them on crosses, set them on fire, dyed them in red coloring, bleached them white.
And yet I was sitting in counseling today, my foot tapping like crazy as I anxiously recalled that one thing that just wouldn’t die.
This is the part of every post where I think to myself, “I wish I could just end it here. I’m not sure I have any good advice to give, and I’m not sure I’m done wrestling with this thing, so let’s just drop the mic and walk away.” But I can’t. Cause this is one of those things that just.
won’t.
die.
And I’m torn, because I celebrate Resurrection Sunday. I think Christ’s resurrection from the grave is the single most important event in the history of humanity.
But I’m also a fan of The Walking Dead. I imagine something rising from the grave as a cold, decomposing horror, that chases me without relent.
So, I have two choices: zombie, or exalted.
When I wake from a terrible nightmare of all the things I have yet to be able to fully bury, it is hard for me to see them as exalted. It’s hard to exalt the things that seem like they are lurking in hidden places. When old things come back from the dead they are still covered in a dusting of dirt, as if to suggest they could be buried again, as if to suggest that is where they belong. Each time you bury the hatchet, it gets a little dirtier, a little more rusty, a little less usable. And after cutting off the head of your zombie memories, the moaning corpse looks less and less human.
In the zombie genre there’s always this underlying search for a cure. If only we could reverse the worldwide trauma. But in my head I remember back to the zombies that were cut in half, laying on the side of the road nipping wildly at whatever passes by, and I can’t help but think, “there’s no cure that’s gonna bring that person back from the undead. They gone.” That’s how I see all of the old things I buried. At this point they’re so decomposed that there’s not much point in bringing them back. But the next thing I know they’re pounding down the walls around my little suburban life, they’re breaking into the false utopia I’ve built. They’re popping up from the bushes when I wander into the forest in the middle of the night. It doesn’t matter how dead they seem, they’re still coming back and threatening my reality. It doesn’t matter how many nights I’ve gotten through without a nightmare of the things that have happened, the next night may hold those same old horrors. The zombie is still alive, still nipping at my heels.
That’s the horror of zombies- they’re unrelenting. So, if we agree that some things just won’t die, and we agree that there are two ways of viewing the undead- this zombie view just isn’t very helpful. It’s horrifying.
But what if the story of Jesus is true? What if the things that have died can come back and be… glorified? What happens when the things that have died are exalted?
Imagine that thing, the horrible hobbling zombie of a memory that keeps coming back to you. Now, put down the pitchfork, the bat, the shotgun, and imagine that this horror holds out it’s hands and shows you their wounds.
“It’s me, it’s the same thing you tried to kill. But I won’t die. Look at the wounds you have inflicted. But I have been given life.”
My first question, after of course yelling, running away, crying a little bit- my first question would be simple: “why?”
It sounds silly- having a nice little talk with your zombies. It’s like stepping into The Walking Dead and suggesting that we all be a bit more diplomatic. I’ve found people who cling to their guns seldom find value in diplomacy (there’s an election coming up- I get paid for making statements like this).
The wounds don’t disappear, but the humanity comes back, and more than humanity there’s something greater. There’s this holiness about it. How can God use that thing for His glory? How can this be a blessing?
I’m not trying to say that somehow magically viewing all of those old dead things as good is going make them any less horrifying.
Imagine that loved one who is gone, and that deep empty void they left, and all the confusion and hurt that followed. You still wrestle with that, because they’re still gone. It’s not a zombie, you’d beg for a zombie at this point, it’s just an empty hole. What if that hole could be used for God’s glory? Imagine the ex that stabbed you in the back, maybe they cheated, maybe they just tore you apart, and all you remember is the way you felt after everything came to light. Empty, rejected, worthless. And those feelings come back all the time. Maybe with your spouse, maybe with your friends. Why is that feeling still there? Why isn’t it resolved? Imagine the friend that stole from you, betrayed your trust. All that is left isn’t the humanity of who they are, or who they were, there is just the pain. It comes out of the grave, it haunts you. When people say “just let it go,” you want to curl up in a ball because you know they’ll never get it. You didn’t ask for the zombies anymore than you asked for the things that hurt you in the first place. You can’t make the nightmares go away. So, the void can’t be filled and can’t be avoided. You can’t just let it go.
Let the things you could never forgive, the things you won’t let go of- let them be exalted.
I wish I could just tell you what that looked like, it’d be great. We’d all go around celebrating all of the stuff that used to haunt us, but let’s not kid ourselves. We know it’s not all going to be better. But that’s the beauty of it, the holes in Christ’s hands, the reality of Christ’s death, that’s what makes Christ so exalted. So the knife in your back, the crack in your heart, the big empty holes, let those things be the evidence of how God has used you. Sometimes the greatest proclamation of the Gospel is simply showing people the zombies and saying “and after all of that I’m still alive.”
Because, after all, if you’re reading this… you are still alive.
|| Posted by Alex ||
No comments:
Post a Comment