Halloween? About Death & the Devil

Halloween? About Death & the Devil

A few years ago my wife and I were fortunate to be able to take a week's vacation at Lake Chelan in Washington state, not that far over the border from where we live. As is often our custom when away on a Sunday, we visited one of the local churches. We have had many wonderful experiences doing this over the years.

This just happened to be the Sunday before Halloween. Now, as we all know, Halloween has become greatly 'überdone' as a special event in the calendar year. Indeed, most of what we see in our North American context is anything but hallowed. And if that isn't enough, many now have to include the day before Halloween to try and accomplish more wickedness. In fact, some call it 'Devil's Night', others 'Mischief Night'.

Halloween has also become a huge business, which is typical of anything in the USA especially. As soon as Thanksgiving is over, it's Halloween all the way, at least in Canada. In the US of course, Thanksgiving comes almost a month after Halloween, so, ironically, they may actually be spared some of the hoopla about Halloween we have here.

But I digress somewhat; I was not intending to write a feature about Halloween. We attended a Nazarene church that Sunday and the pastor spoke on the devil, which was appropriate, considering what was coming up the day after. He talked about how Halloween is about ghosts, goblins and other creatures we associate with the other world, particularly that of the world of those who have experienced death. He also spoke then of how the skeleton, gravestones, coffins etc. are such common motifs in all things to do with Halloween in the secular sense.

The points that the pastor made about all of this is that we should not be surprised. It is because of the devil that we have death. Indeed, one could say, as he basically did, that the devil is all about death. As the pastor said, that's all he can do. He can't create anything as our God does. Therefore, he can't make anything good. Indeed, from what we know of his intentions, they are just to make bad what God has created good.

So, next time Halloween rolls around, think of the devil trapped in his limitations. Not that we should feel sorry for him by any means. We do need to have certain respect for him in terms of acknowledging his existence and what he is about and, as Christians, with Jesus' power resist him. As I wrote in my other blog entry today, Jesus has defeated death and the devil. Jesus came to bring us life; the devil can only come to bring us death. So what does this really say about what Halloween in our modern society is all about?