Month: October 2024

Happy All Hallows’ Eve

This coming Thursday will be October 31, the day we celebrate Halloween. As I did last year, when I go to dialysis that day, I will wear my Martin Luther costume, giving me a chance to testify to the workers about my faith. (A number of years ago, I had a dental appointment on Halloween, so I donned a set of plastic “vampire teeth” for when I opened my mouth for the dentist . . . but that’s another story . . .)

Surprisingly, my wearing my Martin Luther costume for Halloween is appropriate for more than just a chance to “dress up,” because Martin Luther himself had a significant connection to Halloween. Quite a bit, actually!

Although some people had tried to do so earlier, the Reformation was kicked off in earnest by the actions of one particular monk, Martin Luther, who posted a paper to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Saxony (Germany) on October 31, 1517. On that paper were 95 questions, or theses, asking for debate on questions which affected the Church and its doctrines.  Chief among those questions were ones questioning the practice of selling indulgences for the forgiveness of people’s sins. (Luther wrote, for example: “If the Pope can truly forgive people’s sins, in response to the payment of indulgences, then why doesn’t he just forgive those sins out of Christian love?” The Roman Church’s response to that and subsequent disputes, was to condemn and expel Luther and his followers. Thus, the Protestant Church was born, and continues to this day.

Therefore, this Sunday (today), Protestant churches – particularly Lutheran Churches – will celebrate Reformation Day, the beginning of the movement to restore to the Church the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone.

So, how does this connect to Halloween? Luther chose October 31 to post his theses because the next day, November 1, was All Saints Day, and the church would be full of people commemorating all the saints, believers, known and unknown, who had gone before and were now in heaven. That day was a solemn church festival, and was known as All Hallows Day and Hallowmas. The day before was therefore called All Hallows Eve and Hallows-eve, or Halloween.

These days, our celebration of Halloween has little to do with All Saints or the Reformation. Like Christmas and Easter, what began as religious holidays (holy-days), Halloween has accumulated to itself numerous pagan and secular traditions and symbols. Christmas has added Santa and snowmen, reindeer and yule logs. Easter has bunnies and Peeps, baskets and jelly beans. Halloween has taken on ghosts, goblins, witches, skeletons, and diabetes-inducing levels of candy consumption. Christmas is about the birth of Christ, Easter about his resurrection, and All Saints about our new status by faith in Christ. So why has Halloween become something so different from its original meaning?

The commemoration of All Saint Day began, like the other holidays, in cultures that already had various pagan celebrations. In some cases, the Christian holiday replaced the pagan one, in other cases, aspects of the old festival were incorporated in the new Christian one. In the case of Halloween, there was an ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “On the day corresponding to November 1 on contemporary calendars, the new year was believed to begin. That date was considered the beginning of the winter period, the date on which the herds were returned from pasture and land tenures were renewed. During the Samhain festival the souls of those who had died were believed to return to visit their homes, and those who had died during the year were believed to journey to the other world. People set bonfires on hilltops for relighting their hearth fires for the winter and to frighten away evil spirits, and they sometimes wore masks and other disguises to avoid being recognized by the ghosts thought to be present. It was in those ways that beings such as witches, hobgoblins, fairies, and demons came to be associated with the day.”*

All Saints Day was originally in May, but in the 8th Century, the pope moved it to November 1, in an apparent effort to supplant the pagan holiday.

There are some aspects of today’s celebration of Halloween that I don’t appreciate: the over-sexualized witch costumes, the candy-consumption, and the emphasis on death and demons. But there is a religious aspect to all these things that is worth noting.

In Luther’s magnum opus, A Mighty Fortress, he emphasizes Jesus Christ’s victory over the devil. He says:

“And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us; The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him; His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure, One little word shall fell him.”

In light of Christ’s victory, we need not tremble at Satan nor his devils nor anything evil. We are the victors; we have the victory in Christ and know that he is our salvation. Therefore, we can make fun of the the goblins, laugh at them, and reduce them to nothing more than kids’ costumes with plastic masks held on by elastic strings.

Afraid of skeletons? Ezekiel 37:4-6 “Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.'” At the resurrection, all of our skeletons will be raised with flesh and blood and breath, never to die.

Afraid of the Devil? “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:15). “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you” (Luke 10:19).  “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10). And finally, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” (Romans 16:10).

Afraid of witches? First, Scripture forbids us from having anything to do with them or any spell-caster nor one who claims to speak to the dead (mediums). The one case where king Saul consulted a medium, the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28), Saul received God’s curse and word of judgment. But for Christians, we need not fear a witch’s curse or spell, because Scripture tells us: “Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, a curse that is causeless does not alight” (Proverbs 26:2).

Afraid of ghosts? In the words of the theme song to Ghostbusters, “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!” In the Bible, the word for ghost can mean spirit, wind, and breath. When people talk of ghosts, they usually mean disembodied spirits of those whose bodies died. Scripture forbids us from seeking such spirits. Leviticus 19:13 says, “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.” Then, in Isaiah 8:19-20, we are warned, “And when they say to you, ‘Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,’ should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?” Again, in the New Testament, 1 John 4:1 tells us, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

Like many Christian teachers, I don’t believe ghosts are the spirits of dead people, but evil spirits seeking to distract us from God and leading us to disobey him. Therefore, I look to Christ for his victory and protection from whatever evil comes my way – natural or supernatural. For Christ has dominion over all things, visible and invisible.

In closing, I had what I believe was an encounter with a supernatural evil when I was just 7 or 8 years old. I woke up in the middle of the night. and was aware of a black cloud welling up from my bedroom closet. I was suddenly wide awake, and somehow I knew that the cloud was something evil, coming toward me. Then I said out loud, “Jesus, help me!” and suddenly, the cloud vanished, as if a light switch had been switched on. The room was peaceful again, and I went back to sleep.

As I knew even back then, when faced with any danger or fear, our Savior is Jesus Christ. Let us turn and call to him, because as we celebrate this week, we are saints in Christ who have been redeemed by him. Therefore, let us celebrate our day together!

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: 1 Samuel 28.

*“Halloween” article by Encyclopedia Britannica, by the editors and updated by Meg Matthias.

I Almost Died

Sometimes, while “web surfing,” I would occasionally watch some video blogs from someone named Paul Harrell. Then, one day recently, I was surprised to see a post from him that was labeled, “I’m Dead.” So I clicked on the video to see what he meant. It turned out his title for the video was literally true. He explained that if you were watching this video, he had indeed died. He knew he was dying from cancer, and wanted to record this farewell video to thank people for their support and to explain the situation. It felt weird watching him explain his coming death; it was like a ghost had returned for one last message.

I mention that video because this blog almost had the same title: except in my case, fortunately, my blog is titled, “I almost died.”

So what happened? About three weeks ago, I had checked my blood sugar level before going to bed. I was shocked to see that it was very high, so I took a big dose of insulin. Then I waited to see if it dropped to a normal level. When it didn’t, I took some more insulin. Then I kept checking throughout the night. Finally it dropped. Come morning, I told Karen that I hadn’t slept at all, so now I would try to do so. Finally, I fell asleep.

When I woke up two hours later, there were five paramedics standing around the bed, and I had an IV in my hand. They kept asking me questions and told me to stand up if I could. What in the world had happened? I learned that when Karen checked on me that morning, she couldn’t wake me. I had one eye opened but not focused. I mumbled some incoherent sounds. Fearing I had suffered a stroke, she called 911 and in just a few minutes EMS and a fire truck had arrived. They checked me out and discovered it wasn’t a stroke, but a critically low blood sugar level (30 compared to 100 for normal readings; below 54 is considered severely low sugar).  They had given me a shot to kick up my sugar, then insisted I eat something before they left.

Karen saved my life by making that call. I am grateful, and sorry for all the bad things I ever said about her.

Seriously, I almost didn’t even have a chance to write a blog called, “I’m Dead.” In fact, I wasn’t as prepared to meet my end as I thought I was. As with most people, I figured my death was far in the future, and have put off preparations for the event. Before Karen’s father died, he had prepared a notebook with all the details Karen’s mother would need to know. He and his wife had an up-to-date will. And most importantly, he was a devout Christian and knew he could look forward to heaven when the time came.

I need to put together such a notebook, (and maybe a farewell blog), and Karen and I need to update our wills. Fortunately, we both know we have salvation through Jesus Christ, which I recently made clear to my doctor when he asked whether I was worried about my health concerns. I said no, because I knew what waits for me in Christ. Being a Christian, he understood what I meant.

The lesson in all this is we all know our own death is coming, but we usually don’t know “the day nor the hour” when our final breath will be. We won’t necessarily be given an advanced notice with time to get things in order. It therefor behooves us to pay attention to what the Scriptures say about death.

First, our death is inevitable. When God warned Adam that he would die if he ate the forbidden fruit, Adam’s disobedience brought death to all of us who were “in him.” After that curse, the Bible attests to this by speaking of death over 1000 times. Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Likewise, Hebrews 9:27 tells us, “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” Our life has a certain length span to it, also: “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty . . . So teach us to number our days” (Psalm 90:10,12). Even with modern medicine. our life spans are not much longer than that. The fact that the second Person of the Trinity had to come to earth to die that we might live, speaks of the universality of death for us as human creatures.

Second, the only exceptions to this were Enoch, who “walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24); and Elijah, who was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11). Every one else has died or will die, with one more major exception still to come: those who are alive when Christ returns will not die, “but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).

Third, after we die, we will face judgment. The above passage from Hebrews not only affirms the reality of death for us all, but also the inevitability of the judgment after we die. The phrase, “and after that comes judgement,” spells that out clearly. Also, our Lord Jesus spoke of this when he said, “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36-37). Revelation 20 describes the Great White Throne judgment: “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.” In Matthew 25:31-33 Jesus says, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.” And 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” Finally, Acts 17:31 teaches, “Because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Fourth,  this judgment will be different for those who are in Christ. Our names are written in the “book of life” (Revelation 20:12 and others) and we will enter the heavenly Jerusalem with no fear that our names will be removed from the book. God will “remember our sins no more”(Hebrews 8:12), so when we are judged, it will be for the rewards from our works, not for our sins (Revelation 11:18).

Fifth, there will be a general resurrection of all who died, those in Christ to eternal life, and those who are not, to the second death and hell. Revelation 20:18 says, “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Because of what Christ did on the cross, and by his victory over death in the open tomb, we Christians need neither fear death nor the judgment to come. This is our great hope, as we look forward to the unending joy of the life to come. Revelation 21:4 promises of that new life: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Until that day comes, we have work to do here. While we should prepare for that day in practical ways (notebooks, up-dated wills, “I am Dead” blogs, etc.), it is more important to hold fast to our faith in Christ through our prayers, Bible-reading, worship, Holy  Communion, and works of love and mercy. Whenever Christ does return, or we go to join him first, let our death not be an end, but just a milestone in our eternal walk with our Lord!

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: 1 Corinthians 15, Revelation 20.