We are exactly one week away, so it’s the Musing you knew was coming, my bi-annual call to think Christianly about Halloween. If you’ve got the thinking down, feel free to move on to something else. I don’t mind. Still, you might benefit from the reminder that we are Christians, and we engage our culture following the instruction we receive from our Lord in His Word. If you keep reading, you might read numbers that scare even the least paranoid among us.
Little is more resistant to economic hardships than the Halloween holiday, at least that’s what American spending conveys. The National Retail Federation predicts Americans will shell out $12.2 billion for Halloween-related goods in 2023, up from last year's $10.6 billion record.
How do we spend so much money? It’s mostly on costumes and candy, but 51% of us plan to decorate our yards and houses in Halloween themed decorations.
Home Depot sells a 12-foot-tall skeleton for display in your front yard. “Skelly” as he is affectionately called has sold out nationally three times, at a price tag of $300! As an aside, what do you do with a 12-foot-tall skeleton after October 31?
With a few qualifications, I don’t have a strong opinion on the whole Halloween thing. Some Christians have strong opinions about celebrating Halloween in any fashion. That’s completely understandable. They argue Halloween is a pagan festival in which Christians should have no part. They aren’t wrong. Here’s what the BBC writes about Halloween’s creepy past.
“Millennia ago, the holiday known throughout the Western world as Halloween was a far more solemn time. Known to the Celtic peoples as Samhain, it represented the end of the summer and a day when the barrier between the living and the dead was believed to be at its thinnest. Spirits, both good and ill, were believed to wander freely among the Earth. Dressing up in costumes and offering food was a way of placating their potential wrath. Today, these rituals are mainly observed by a relatively small number of Neopagan believers.”
Other Christians see the day as a pastime in American culture. Connections to evil or spiritual darkness are the exception and not the norm. To them wearing an amusing costume and passing out candy to neighborhood children is simple fun. Wherever you land, there is a point at which all Christians should agree.
“I don't begrudge dress-up, can't complain about meeting neighbors and candy, but there's something sick about death as a decorating theme.” R.C. Sproul, Jr.
About the trend in costumes, Parade magazine, considered by no one as a leading voice in how to think Christianly, offered “The biggest shock is how ghastly kids' costumes have become—instead of superheroes and princesses, we now have zombies and dead dollies! And instead of adorable couple's costumes, we've got scary couple Halloween costumes!”
Can we Christians agree that decorating ourselves or our homes with elements of death denies the very core of our Christianity?
Death is our greatest enemy. Over and again the Bible tells us what we know by experience, death is coming for all of us. Abel died. Adam died. Seth died. They all died. The Bible tells us “It is appointed for man to die once” and “Death passed upon all men.” Death is part of God’s judgment upon humanity for its open rebellion against Him since the Garden of Eden. Why would anyone want to dress their little boy as a deliverer of death or their little girl as one who has already died? There’s something wrong with that.
Jesus conquered death. The celebration for Christians must be the victory Jesus achieved over death. Paul wrote, “O Death, where is your sting?” Because of Jesus’s death on the cross, death no longer reigns in the human experience. Where man brought death by his sin against God, Jesus brings life by His obedience to God (Romans 5:19). Christians always celebrate life. We mourn at every death and every expression of death.
If you so choose to welcome to your front door the children and families in your neighborhood, have the best treats you can give away. Be the smiling, happy, generous guy or nice lady all the kids talk about in school on Monday. Meet and talk with your neighbors who never seem to have the time other nights of the year when you are trying to build a bridge that leads to gospel conversations. Just do not applaud death or any of its agents.
As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.