Jesus, Lazarus and the Undead

Easter Sunday begins in a few, and so we faithful are going to have to endure many facebook memes and jokes referring to the Zombie Christ or something.  To clarify, zombies and other revenants are often remembered on the Resurrection Pasch day but they aren't quite the same as what happened to Christ.  Let's look one by one.

Firstly, legends throughout the world are filled with horror fables about the dead rising from the grave.  Normally a dead loved one rising from the dead should not be a sad or scary thing.  In fact, it ought to be a happy thing.  Unless the so-called "living dead" bears little resemblance both in appearance and behaviour to it's living counterpart.  Examples of this kind of being, called a revenant, includes vampires, zombies, liches, and a whole plateau of re-animated dead.

Yup, that's the term - re-animated.

These days, when we think of animation, we think of animated cartoons.  If you think about it, that's just about right.  Animation here refers to the process of giving these drawings or images the semblance of movement.  A person who is very active is said to be animated.  To animate is to move.  The word anima or animus refers to soul, or that which makes something active or move.  Hence, animals, like humans, have souls.

The zombie is thus a corpse that has been re-animated.  The body moves again of it's own power.  However, the spirit, or the supernatural quality that makes the human being different than animals is no longer there.  Spirit is different than the soul in the sense that it is spirit that gives us the ability to have language, intellect and culture.  Angels are pure spirits.  People are not.  The latin for spirit, though, comes from the word for breath.

It may be argued that vampires and liches are not just re-animated, but also retain their souls.  However, one difference is that their bodies are transformed, but in a negative way.

Secondly, what happened to Lazarus was different.  Lazarus wasn't just restored to life or re-animated.  He retained his spirit and other faculties, and brought back into a state before he died.  He is still mortal and can still die in the future.  Think of it as restoring from a backup file.

This, my friends, is what we call resuscitation. The dead person is restored to a previous state.

Jesus on the other hand, did not just resuscitate.  He came back to life into a body with totally different properties.  In this sense, He is like a vampire or lich.  The change however, is positive.  Unlike a vampire, the resurrected Jesus need not drain life or blood from others like a parasite.  Unlike a lich,  the resurrected Jesus' body is perfect and immortal.

What characteristics differentiate the resurrected from the resuscitated?

In the gospels, the resurrected Christ is shown to alter appearance or to make sure that He is unrecognised unless  He wants to be.  The resurrected Christ also seemingly has the ability to instantaneously appear in enclosed rooms to the apostles.  Teleportation?

Catholics believe that the resurrected body is then also immortal.  Catholics believe that all the dead will be resurrected.  Some to damnation and some to heaven.  Beyond the topic now.

To summarize: re-animation for zombies, resuscitation for Lazarus, and resurrection for Christ.