Halloween is a holiday obsessed with death. It is filled with zombies, mummies and demons. There are many questions about its beginnings, some point back to ancient Roman pagans, others to ancient Celtic practices, and others to early Christian superstitions. Though the beginnings maybe unclear, what is clear is our cultural perception of it. A holiday that is dedicated to scary, horror saturated fun! Though there are costumes of witches, warlocks, werewolves and demons these are less spiritual confessions then commercial marketing. Our materialistic culture has stripped the holiday from its roots to the point that if you were to ask the average person in our community “what is Halloween truly about?” the responses would be varied but have one thing in common…they wouldn’t have to do with some Satanic worship experience. No, mostly it would be about parties, fun and candy.
So what am I to do with Halloween as a Christian? To
understand this, first I must ask you a question; what is your belief about
Jesus’ place in culture? Do you believe Jesus is against culture and therefore
you must defy culture at every opportunity? Do you believe He is in culture and
therefore you are free to participate in cultural activities? Or do you believe
Christ is over culture and therefore you must redeem culture?
We see in Colossians 1:18 that Jesus is “preeminent” in
everything. As a believer we must see Christ at the center of everything, we
must change our perspective to align with His reality.
Halloween is a materialistic holiday obsessed with death.
How do we see Christ over this Holiday in a redeeming fashion? We preach the
Gospel! The Bible is full of stories that use God’s power over death to point
us to Jesus. The Bible deals extensively with death. The human predicament is
that we will all die, and Halloween can be looked at a way that we try to
dismiss the reality by dressing it up in costume. Yet we are not left on our
own to answer these tough questions. God has given us the answers in the Bible.
Halloween reveals a passion and desire in mankind that
desires the superstitious, the fantastic and unexplainable. We often think that
these myths and legends belong to the pagans and we should leave them alone.
Have you read the Bible? Wow, God understands this, or as I believe, we desire
these things because of how He has written on our hearts a desire for Him. He
has placed in His Word story after story that draw us in and point us to Him.
Halloween is a time where we can deal with those weird
passages of the Bible that we may not fully understand or see how they fit in.
The stories of the “Nehphelim” or the “witch of Endor” certainly seem
seasonably appropriate. Or how about the story of those who came to life at the
crucifixion in Matthew 27? Wow that is weird! Yet what does it teach us? God
has power over death! As believers we have this hope that Christ rose from the
dead and therefore we look forward to a future resurrection.
We shouldn’t get caught up in the silly controversies that
often arise with this holiday; instead we should look for ways to communicate
the Gospel to our culture in a way that makes Jesus look appealing!
Does running a campaign against “jack-o-lanterns” make Jesus
look glorious or petty? Does closing your doors on “beggar’s night” make Jesus
look glorious or stingy? Does passing out Bibles or tracts but no candy draw
people to the Word or make them feel ripped off? We know that the Word of God,
the Gospel Message, is more to be desired then gold, let alone a Snicker bar,
but the culture doesn’t realize this.
Let’s use Halloween as a way to show that Jesus is truly
Lord over all. That we serve a loving and kind God who is abundant in mercy and
generous. Let’s show how God doesn’t get caught up in the trivial, but has sent
us out on a mission to live out His message. Maybe if we stop arguing and
protesting over the stupid and mundane, and start living out the Gospel in our
life then the culture around us will “see our good works and glorify our Father
in Heaven!”
