Halloween: Our Darkness Revealed

I’ve previously used this blog to wring my hands about Halloween. Though I still dislike it, I now wonder if it is one of the most honest celebrations in which our countrymen engage. I think it deeply unpleasant that we dress up our children as victims of brutal assaults and violent homicides, with torn, bloodied clothes and horrific injuries, yet don't we slaughter hundreds of thousands of the unborn each year? By thus dressing those children whom we permit to live, we expose our atrocious, murderous instincts.

Others dress as ghosts and zombies. Such beings, though dead, yet live. This nicely illustrates most Westerners: alive yet dead; breathing, yet spiritually unconscious. Physically moving about, but insensible to gospel truth. Unfit for God's heaven, we idealise meaningless floating or some hideous, pseudo-resurrection. This we might call hell, and it's where most are heading.

Others are disguised as demons and devils. Of course, it’s all a bit of fun, such things aren’t real, it can’t do any harm. Yet these are the lies spoken by the very demons whose existence we don’t believe. In Revelation 9:20, we read of people worshipping demons, and Paul tells us that demons teach doctrines and receive pagan worship. Such unclean spirits doubtless receive pleasure from such human behaviour; dressing up as them is a great compliment.

Others go about clothed as witches and wizards, folk who allegedly control nature and its forces through spells and potions. We think that by our pills and medicines, we can keep on healing and restoring our bodies, evading death’s icy fingers. We think that by our activities we can take control of the climate with its systems of weather. We think ourselves as clever and strong, powerful and influential, whereas we are collectively weak and foolish. 

I could go on. Soulless secularism has left us seeking spiritual meaning, though our dark hearts and terrible pride cannot but reject Christ’s gospel. Halloween exposes our desire for more than the material while at the same time revealing our ingrained ungodliness and deep, inner darkness.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5:20

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