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.