Many of us love to be scared. Check your local theaters...the only thing you'll find this weekend are horror films.
Exactly 40 years ago, the year 1972 earned an odd distinction:
189 horror movies were released that year, the most in any single year. Since then, the horrors have continued. Let's see how you do with a little horror film trivia:
- Which movie remains the No.1 horror movie ever, grossing over $470 million?*
- Whose frightening novels have been turned into 37 feature films?*
- Who became known as "The Scream Queen" by starring in six horror movies between the 70s and 80s?*
- What is the only horror film ever to win an Oscar for best picture?*
And of course the Twilight movies and True
Blood television series have made vampires more popular than ever. This fits a longstanding
obsession with Count Dracula, the most-often portrayed
character in horror, appearing in 162 films.
The writer of Psalm 34 says, “I sought the LORD, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears”. In times of trouble, we want to be delivered, and yet — at the very same time — we seem to like to be scared. We even have a holiday for it.
Halloween is just days away, the day on which normally well-behaved boys and girls become something they aren’t and enjoy dipping their toes in the water of fear. And it is not just a children’s holiday anymore: Adults currently spend an average of $70 per person on their Halloween costumes. The holiday has expanded to include a month of lawn decorations, plus weekend parties for adults and children. The National Retail Federation estimated that 70 percent of Americans celebrated Halloween last year, spending $7 billion. That’s a lot of money. And spending has doubled since 2005.
Clearly we like to be scared by horror movies, and we also enjoy dressing up on Halloween and letting out our inner witch, vampire or zombie. What’s going on with this? Should Christians be concerned that a pagan holiday has become big business in the United States, involving 70 percent of the population?
I don't think so. In fact. I propose we take back Halloween.
Halloween actually has Christian origins — it means “All Hallows’ Eve,” the night before All Hallows’ Day, more commonly called
All Saints’ Day. But even though it has a Christian origin, Halloween has
pagan roots that go deep into the Celtic festival called Samhain, which means “summer’s end.” Samhain was a time of transition,
in which farmers prepared for the cold winter months that were coming; it was
also a time when the physical and supernatural worlds were believed to be very
close to one another. Magical things could happen, according to the Celts.
Once Christianity became
the dominant religion of Europe, these ancient beliefs took on a Christian
flavor. The souls of the dead were believed to wander the earth until All
Saints’ Day, and Halloween was the last chance for angry ghosts to
gain vengeance on their enemies. So what did Christians do? Put on masks and
costumes to disguise themselves. The tradition continues when we dress up as
witches, vampires and zombies.
Halloween clearly contains
some problems for Christians today, rooted in its traditions of magical
occurrences and wandering ghosts. Not that any of us builds bonfires to ward
off evil spirits, as the Celts did, or dresses up in costumes to hide from angry
ghosts, as European Christians did. But still, problems can arise for
Christians. But, this is only if you believe that this night before All Saints day is a kind of time that breaks down a barrier between the
physical and the supernatural worlds.
In truth, Christianity does not teach that there is a separation, such as this, between a physical and a supernatural world. We believe and teach, as it says in Genesis, that God made all things and called them "good". There is not a "bad world", or a distinction between the physical and spiritual whereby the physical is bad and the spiritual is good. This kind of dualism contradicts the character of a good and merciful God who is clearly described in the scriptures. What we do teach, on this matter, is that there is sin and it destroys and corrupts all things. Sin has corrupted all things, including people, decisions, systems. All creation is broken and corrupt. This is not merely a matter of morality; this is much bigger, and more insidious.
The results of sin are truly terrifying. We might be playful this time of year with things like ghosts and vampires, and horror films, but the pain and suffering of sin are no joke to any of us. Sit in the hospital with a mother and father when their child is having life-threatening surgery...that's true terror. Talk with a soldier about post traumatic stress, and you'll hear about true horror. Listen in to the stories told at an AA meeting, and you'll hear about men and women facing true demons.
But, it's Martin Luther who once wrote, "The best way to drive away the devil, is to laugh at him and flout him, for he cannot bear to be mocked." We have been given the gift of the promise of life in our faith in Jesus Christ. This faith overcomes our fears. The writer of today's Psalm identifies with all of us who endure through the challenges of sin in this world. He says, "I sought the Lord and He delivered me from all my fears." Our faith allows us to hold on tight to Christ's promise of deliverance through all that threatens us. We are too small and vulnerable to face alone the very real threats of and curses of sin and sin's destructive forces. But, we are not alone! We have faith. Faith in the promise of Christ, and faith in the friendship of the church. When one of us is weak, the rest of us can be strong. We give the efforts from this a fancy word. It's called ministry, when the church becomes the strength to help others hold on tight to the promises that carry us through the terrors of life. With the church, and with our faith, we can mock the devil and his empty promises.
This is why I propose we take back Halloween. It gives us the precise opportunity to mock the forces of evil and the devil. We can dress up in images of fear and horror, and then laugh at it with fun. It gives us an opportunity to teach our children that no matter what happens, we need not be afraid, because God is always with us.
So, what are some ways the church can take back Halloween:
Some churches, like ours, bring Halloween into the church
because they believe that it is safer for children to dress up and get treats
in church than to teach them to run around the neighborhood in the dark and do
so. Others celebrate the holiday as Reformation Day, which shares
the same date — these churches throw Harvest Festivals or Reformation
Festivals, and invite people to wear masks and costumes just to literally take
them off as a sign of the freedom from fear that grace and truth offers
us.
Another approach is to
acknowledge that the ancient Celts were right to focus on “summer’s end.” Halloween is about the
transition from summer to winter, from life to death. Even young children are
beginning to wonder about mortality, so what is the harm in having them dress
up as ghosts or skeletons? We might think of it as a teaching moment about the promise of life, in the ability to take off the "clothing that scares".
“I sought the LORD, and he
answered me,” says Psalm 34, “and delivered me from all
my fears.”. When children become frightened of witches, ghosts,
zombies and vampires, these are teaching moments for us to share with them the
good news that God is with them and has the power to deliver them. A child is never too young to learn
that.
We can take back Halloween
by remembering that Halloween
points us to All Saints’ Day. It is, after all, All
Hallows’ Eve. Halloween reminds us that
“we are surrounded by so
great a cloud of witnesses”, a heavenly congregation of faithful servants of God who have
gone before us. On Halloween, we should
remember that the barrier between the physical and spiritual really is quite
thin — thin in the sense that we can easily see the examples of the graceful
and loving relatives, friends, colleagues, and fellow church members who have
entered everlasting life with God.
On All Hallows’ Eve, let’s not focus so much on the
living dead — zombies that pop up on movie screens. Instead, let’s remember the dead who are
still living as saints of God, and as inspirations to us.
Amen
* Jaws, Stephen King, Jamie Lee Curtis, The Silence of the Lambs
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