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| zombie jesus by jack c gregory |
So brain eating zombies are a somewhat new phenomena, the concept of conjuring dead spirits or even reanimating dead corpses is not. My guess is that there are more people somewhat fearing a zombie apocalypse now in New York then there were active fears of undead in ancient Jerusalem. The reality being that one can find many today who readily assess their surroundings for the best place to go in case zombies arise... effort and contingency plans which would assuredly have the same level of efficacy as ancient talismans against evil... and are about equally productive as a pass time.
I bring this up only to point out that hysteria and concern about corpses animated to some level of life are an old fear about which we continue to invest much time and interest. The vast majority of these stories create some form of demi-human... one that is exceptional in some respects but any amazing strengths they may have are balanced by horrendous weakness. Even in the rare cases of stories of undead that have marginally few negative traits, very old vampires in the Anne Rice mythos, the vampires created by Stephanie Meyer, the hybrids in underworld, they maintain flaw that cannot be forgotten. They are still cut off from the rest of humanity, if they are capable of intimate physical relations at all these relations are sterile, and, most importantly, they are incapable of sharing a meal with other humans for the sake of mutual nourishment and enjoyment.
This ability to eat is the real human factor that divides us from the demi-human undead. It is the mark of being human, not demi-human, of being alive not undead. It is also the mark of being incarnate and not just spirit. The gods housed in idols of wood and metal do not eat, assuredly much food is offered to them, but this food is only spiritually consumed with the physical aspect of it then eaten by priests, the choice bits, or the populace at large, the not so choice bits.
So what does it mean that Jesus eats fish, like a human, and does not drink human blood or relentlessly hunger for braaaaains? It means two things. First it means that he is not demi-human, that he can be in our midst after his death and still relate to us on the basic levels of being human. It also means that he is not above humans and solely a creature of spirit, like the idols fashioned of metal and wood, his incarnate nature remains intact. The resurrected Jesus is uber-human. He is capable of everything he was capable of before his death, fully human, but now is also fully transcendent.
This brings us to the meal we still share with Jesus, the Eucharistic meal. The meal where we are asked each week to eat human flesh and drink human blood, to eat Godly flesh and drink Godly blood, to eat Jesus flesh and drink Jesus blood. The concept of this being a demi-human cannibalistic act is not new, it is one of the oldest slanders against the Eucharistic meal. What it presents however is the reversal of the food provided to idols. Instead of humans offering meals to idols for the spiritual nourishment of the false god we instead have food being offered by God to the people for their spiritual nourishment. It is a means of noting, every time we gather, that God is one who breaks bread and sips wine with us, as one of us, and is not a demi-human being seeking to use us up nor a transcendent being with whom we can have no true connection, but a being uber-human, but still human none the less... still able to enjoy a morsel of boiled fish with friends.
I bring this up only to point out that hysteria and concern about corpses animated to some level of life are an old fear about which we continue to invest much time and interest. The vast majority of these stories create some form of demi-human... one that is exceptional in some respects but any amazing strengths they may have are balanced by horrendous weakness. Even in the rare cases of stories of undead that have marginally few negative traits, very old vampires in the Anne Rice mythos, the vampires created by Stephanie Meyer, the hybrids in underworld, they maintain flaw that cannot be forgotten. They are still cut off from the rest of humanity, if they are capable of intimate physical relations at all these relations are sterile, and, most importantly, they are incapable of sharing a meal with other humans for the sake of mutual nourishment and enjoyment.
This ability to eat is the real human factor that divides us from the demi-human undead. It is the mark of being human, not demi-human, of being alive not undead. It is also the mark of being incarnate and not just spirit. The gods housed in idols of wood and metal do not eat, assuredly much food is offered to them, but this food is only spiritually consumed with the physical aspect of it then eaten by priests, the choice bits, or the populace at large, the not so choice bits.
So what does it mean that Jesus eats fish, like a human, and does not drink human blood or relentlessly hunger for braaaaains? It means two things. First it means that he is not demi-human, that he can be in our midst after his death and still relate to us on the basic levels of being human. It also means that he is not above humans and solely a creature of spirit, like the idols fashioned of metal and wood, his incarnate nature remains intact. The resurrected Jesus is uber-human. He is capable of everything he was capable of before his death, fully human, but now is also fully transcendent.
This brings us to the meal we still share with Jesus, the Eucharistic meal. The meal where we are asked each week to eat human flesh and drink human blood, to eat Godly flesh and drink Godly blood, to eat Jesus flesh and drink Jesus blood. The concept of this being a demi-human cannibalistic act is not new, it is one of the oldest slanders against the Eucharistic meal. What it presents however is the reversal of the food provided to idols. Instead of humans offering meals to idols for the spiritual nourishment of the false god we instead have food being offered by God to the people for their spiritual nourishment. It is a means of noting, every time we gather, that God is one who breaks bread and sips wine with us, as one of us, and is not a demi-human being seeking to use us up nor a transcendent being with whom we can have no true connection, but a being uber-human, but still human none the less... still able to enjoy a morsel of boiled fish with friends.
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