Last night I watched Warm Bodies, a recently produced romantic zombie comedy that is nothing short of abnormal. It's not everyone's humor, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Regardless it did bring some intriguing thoughts and questions to mind in terms of Christian parallels, though I doubt the directors had much intention of relaying underlying tones or messages. Then again, it's completely possible.The film focuses on two protagonists, 'R', a man turned zombie after an apocalypse, and Julie, a missional young woman who is set on fighting zombies in order to preserve the human race. Over time the two characters meet and fall in love (though I won't explain how this happens to encourage you to watch it for yourself), and eventually the love from Julie begins to change 'R' from the inside out, which, to me, is reminiscent of the love of Christ.
I think oftentimes, as Christ-followers, we think about love in a shortened version of how it's really supposed to be. We think 'The love of Jesus is for me. God's grace has been offered, I have accepted it as a weary sinner in need of it, and now I'm saved'.
Then we let it stop right there.
If this is all we think being a Christ-follower means, then I think we have missed the mark completely. The love of Christ indeed is offered to us, freely given. We accept the love of Christ by grace through faith, but the experience of God is not meant to stop there. As Christ followers we are meant to grow in our knowledge of Jesus, and in doing this we grow in our experience of love, because the more we know Jesus, the more we know love.
In Jesus we see how to love. In Jesus we are overwhelmed by His love. In Jesus we are loved. In Jesus we are motivated to love other people, because a heart that has been truly impacted by divine love can then only extend divine love.
This is the pivotal point that I want to parallel with Warm Bodies. In the film, the transforming love of Julie is what sparks a flame within 'R'. (Obviously, Julie's love is romantic in type, and this is where the analogy falls through, as love referred to in Christianity refers to various sorts of love). In his infected state, 'R' is a zombie, devoid of love and slowly dying with each passing day. Whenever Julie extends love, when she interacts with him and shares pieces of her soul with him, deep magic happens. A spark is ignited within 'R' and the warmth begins to spread, transforming 'R' from a zombified state of dryness to a human being that is alive, awake with an unexplainable love.
That's perhaps the best definition of love: unexplainable.
This phenomenon is one that Richard Beck attempts to portray in the following video:
Not that he is explaining love, because that would be quite the intimidating feat, but that he is hitting on this point exactly: love is absolutely incomprehensible. It does not make sense, and that is what makes it so unique, so powerful.
Dr. Beck presents an example: a feces making contact with an apple. In theory, to our understanding, that which holds a negative connotation should infect that which does not.
Logically this makes sense. This is comprehensible, that the unclean infects the clean. You wouldn't eat an apple after it had encountered feces, because it would now be contaminated.
Love acts in direct opposition to this.
Consider Warm Bodies: Julie's love in a sense 'infects' 'R'. The irony is obvious on various levels: love is topsy-turvy. It infects, but it is a good infection, perhaps the best sort one could ever imagine. Love infects people from the inside out, but instead of initiating disease that leads to death it lights a fuse that ignites life.
Love is illogical.
You could extract here, at this point in the post, a lesson on how to love. You could read all of these words and think to yourself that you need to stop seeing others as unlovable, that you need to be the apple and interact with the feces, to be the human and love the zombie.
That would also be missing the mark.
Think on this: you are the feces. I am a zombie. We are all dead in our own isolation. Jesus is the apple, the parallel to Julie that extends love, and when His goodness interacts with our grossness, we are infected. This does not make sense, it is not logical, because whenever something gross interacts with something good, the bad should infect the good. Love performs the exact opposite by causing the good to infect the bad.
It's quite a good infection.
I suppose I am blogging a Gospel reminder: when we were dead in our sins, sinking in our transgressions, Christ loved. He saw us at our darkest and chose to love. This is overwhelming.
Understanding this is what will motivate us to love, because instead of seeing other people as zombies, as gross or unclean, we realize that everyone is deserving of love, whether we think they are or not, because a humble reminder is this: Jesus loved you when you were undeserving. Jesus loved me, and still continues to do so, when I was and am undeserving. None of us deserve love. That's the point.
Understanding this is what will motivate us to love, because instead of seeing other people as zombies, as gross or unclean, we realize that everyone is deserving of love, whether we think they are or not, because a humble reminder is this: Jesus loved you when you were undeserving. Jesus loved me, and still continues to do so, when I was and am undeserving. None of us deserve love. That's the point.
The love of Christ does not simply impact us. It doesn't just save us. It transforms us, and when this transformation happens, we cannot help but spread the infectious love.
A lot of people turn away from the Church or pass judgement on Jesus because of how Jesus-followers live. Often those who are turned off by Christianity are those who have been hurt by the Church, those who have not been loved. What if we, Christ-followers, realized that the greatest evidence of the Gospel truth is for Jesus-followers to live out said truth? What if we realized that the greatest evidence of God is love? What if we realized the importance of living out the love that we claim to believe in, claim to place our hope in?
Perhaps the world has one real need: Christians whose lives match their words and convictions. We claim Christ, so let's get to know Him deeper each day. We claim love, so let's live it out. We need Jesus not merely for ourselves but for others. We need to learn how to love because the world needs love.
We all need Jesus, each and every day, for the sake of loving each other.
When the love of Christ infects us, we are changed. Where before we were dry bones we become passionate souls.
Warm bodies.
