BP 114
Some of you may remember watching mummy movies like The Mummy, a 1999 fantasy film about an adventurer, a librarian and her older brother who travel to Hamunaptra where they awaken a mummified man who then later awakens his mummified consort. These mummy flicks seem to have the same plot: a person dies or is killed millennia ago, then is dispossessed of his or her organs, embalmed, wrapped in white linens, and finally sealed in a mummy case or a sarcophagus (coffin).
Sometimes black ‘goo’ is used to seal the coffin, remind people of Osiris, or as a sign of respect for the wealthy or famous person who has been mummified. One sarcophagus was opened only to find three bodies floating in the “mummy mucous” that is made of a combination of plant oil, animal fat, tree resin, beeswax, and bitumen (asphalt).
Thousands of years later—again, according to mummy movies–some of these mummies are released from their claustrophobic confines by some curious (and stupid) adventurer who accidentally or intentionally recites words from some ancient book of magic that summon the mummy from the dead and back to life. Usually, bad things then happen because the awakened mummy seems to always be a villainous character bent on exacting revenge or making the whole world subject to his or her dark power.
When you stop to think about it, being a mummy would not be so bad since mummies are dead before they are encased in their dark capsules (there are some tragic exceptions like Ignacia Aguilar who was not embalmed, of course). Who would object to being wrapped up and placed in a mummy case if they are already dead and unaware of their tight quarters?
But what if you were a living mummy, if someone wrapped you up and sealed you in a mummy case with black goo poured all over you when you were still alive? Now, that would be terrible—the stuff of nightmares. You might know someone whose greatest fear is being buried alive in a coffin.
Yes, what if the nightmare turns out to be true? What if you and everyone born into this world comes pre-mummified (dead with no heart in your chest cavity)? What if you emerge from your mother’s womb wrapped in crushing bonds and trapped in a mummy case with black ‘goo’ poured in and over your body?
Psychotherapy is not going to do you a lot of good in that condition unless it helps rescue you from the mummy case and undoes the bonds of death.
Scripture pretty much tells us that we are born mummified, that we are like one of the creepy mummies in The Mummy movie who was encased in his sarcophagus while still alive. We are the living dead. See the Bible verses below that refer to our mummy status, namely, being heartless, dead, bound up, encased.
Ezekiel 36:26 – “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Ephesians 2:1ff – “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. . . . dead in our trespasses.”
Ephesians 5:14 — “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
1 Timothy 5:6 – “. . . but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.”
Revelation 3:1 — “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of Him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.’”
Luke 15:24 – “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’”
I John 3:14 – “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.”
1 Corinthians 1:18 – “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
Hebrews 12:1 – “. . . let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us . . .”
2 Timothy 2:25-26 – “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare [mummy case] of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
It is very clear from Scripture, then, that we are all born mummies. Like Imhotep, we are the living dead. We have no heart, we are dead in sin, we are alive physically but are perishing or have already perished spiritually. We are also bound by the snare of the devil, earthly weights, and the sins that wrap themselves around our dead hearts like boa constrictors.
Being born into this world is not at all a pretty picture if you envision everyone dead, bound, and imprisoned for eternity in a spiritual mummy case.
Even new-born infants enter the world sealed in mummy cases. We hold their cute little bodies and think of them as angels in human form, but they are encased in a sarcophagus of sin and death and black ‘goo’.
Many people would derisively mock you for such a dark description of infants, but we know better—if we observe the world through eyes that see the spiritual world. We know that the Fall of the first Adam in the Garden condemns us all to slavery to sin and eternal death. We are living in mummified form.
Even the Apostle Paul cried out as a believer, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” ~ Romans 7:24.
As we know, there is only One Way to be released from the mummy case and to throw off the sin that constricts us so tightly we cannot move or escape. Ephesians 2:4-7 says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
How amazing is the deliverance offered us in Jesus Christ when we discern our mummified condition! We are born dead, but then Jesus makes us alive with Him. At that point, we are delivered from death and our names are written in the Book of Life. Then God spends the rest of our days on this planet slowly ripping off the bonds of sin and washing off the black ‘goo’ of death. We become increasingly less mummified and more like Jesus, the glorious One.
Since Designer Therapy for Life is a blog that integrates faith and psychology, my hope and prayer for you in this post is that all psychotherapy that you pursue will have as its aim the removal of the snares, weights, and sins that have enslaved you and that cling so tightly to your heart and your core identity. May therapy be all about digging deep into your new heart and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, removing the black ‘goo’ in your soul and on your body that feeds anxiety, depression, addictions (idols), and every other mental illness that strives to separate you from the Giver of Life and is also a terrible byproduct of that separation.
Never forget—Jesus Himself unrolled the scroll of Isaiah and read, “He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives [mummies]” ~ Luke 4:18
So, cry out to Him and He will set you free from sin, bonds, and death.
“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” ~ Colossians 1:13-14