Saturday 31 October 2015

The Truth about Halloween

What is Halloween reallyall  about?

Halloween Brightens up the long dark winter
To many people Halloween is just a bit of fun. The winter is a long, dark and cold season. Imagine there was no Guy Fawkes night with bonfire and fireworks, no Halloween with parties, dressing up, trick or treat, no Christmas with family get-togethers, feasts and celebration - imagine how dull and dreary winter would be. It would be horrible!

Halloween is one of the three main winter celebrations that brightens our winter and makes it far more bearable. 


But isn’t it evil?
For most people, probably for you it really is just a fun time. There is nothing sinister about it at all. Maybe a few kids go too far with their 'tricks', maybe some people wake up the next morning hung over, but that is usually as bad as it gets.

But Halloween trivialises evil. If evil is little red devils with goat feet and pitched forks, then evil doesn't really exist right? Wrong!

We would be naive to imagine there is nothing sinister about it at all. The truth is, some people do have a morbid side. A fascination with death and evil. Halloween feeds that morbidity with horror movies. Horror movies are sinister, they entertain using the most horrible, sick, disgusting and evil ideas and images they can concoct, and the more evil and graphic - the better!  Why do people find it entertaining seeing others getting torn to pieces and horrifically tortured or eaten alive etc? Without pressing the point too hard, I think it is fair to say, there is at least something sinister about that.

Then there are those who really are evil. The truth is, whatever terrible, sick and evil act you can imagine - if it is possible, somebody somewhere is probably doing it. Then there is the general evil in the world. A suicide bomber blows himself and other up! A nation rises up against another in war. This is evil - mass, mass murder! Satan loves that stuff. Evil really exists, we live in a broken, messed up, mad world that is crying out for salvation from evil - but rather than face up to evil, we trivialise it.

Now for the Surprise
Having said all that, the surprising thing is that Halloween is in fact a Christian Celebration, like Guy Fawkes and Christmas.

Now there may be a few druids out there who would argue: “Actually Halloween was originally an ancient celtic festival Samhain”. But the truth is nobody today celebrates Samhain (maybe a few tree-huggers in Lewes), we celebrate HALLOWEEN'.

Halloween comes from ‘Hallows Eve’. You can easily see the similarity. Hallows Eve was celebrated by Christians long, long before Samhain. So what is “Hallows Eve”? Well we know what ‘Eve’ means. Think ‘Christmas Eve’. Christmas Eve is the evening before Christmas Day. Eve means ‘The evening before’. So Hallows Eve is ‘The Evening before Hallows Day”.

So what is ‘Hallows Day?’ Hallows means ‘Saints’. Hallows Eve, or Halloween is the night before ‘Hallows Day’ or ‘All Saints Day’. Many churches around the country, especially Anglican churches still celebrate ‘All Saints Day’. 

‘Saints’ are Christians. All Saints Day is the day that Christians celebrate their champion Jesus’s victory over all the powers of hell, darkness and evil. 

So the Bible tells us concerning Jesus …

15 And having disarmed the [evil] powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Colossians 2). 

Christians used to celebrate this event by dressing their children up to make a mockery of the devil and His demons. It was a way of saying, “We have no fear of you at all, you are powerless”. It was a time to mock and scorn the powers of darkness and celebrate the victory of Jesus, not a celebration of evil. It was an expression of faith that, no matter how dark the world gets, the day will drive the night away, one day, forever, and all because of Jesus.

Hallows Eve is the night before that celebration. It was believed that the night before All Saints Day, the powers of evil would do their worst knowing that the coming day would drive them and their darkness away.

Darkness must always give way to light!


Sadly, Christianity is as real to people today as Halloween. However, just as there is real evil in the world, so Jesus really has defeated the powers of evil. Jesus really does set people free and brings true light to their dark world. In the darkness - without Jesus people are lost in life, many people feel this ‘lostness’, not knowing who they really are or why they exist or what is the point of it all. But nobody needs to be lost. This Halloween could become not only a time for fun and parties, but a time when Jesus the Light of the world comes into your life to bring light to your world. 

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