What
if a crisp October wind blew through “the way we’ve always done things” at
Halloween? What if the Spirit stirred in us a new perspective on October 31?
What if dads led their households in a fresh approach to Halloween as
Christians on mission?
What
if spreading a passion for God’s supremacy in all things included
Halloween — that amalgamation of wickedness now the second-largest commercial
holiday in the West?
Loving Others and Extending Grace
What if we didn’t think of
ourselves as “in the world, but not of it,” but rather, as Jesus says in John
17, “not of
the world, but sent into it”?
And
what if that led us to move beyond
our squabbles about whether or not we’re free to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve,
and the main issue became whether our enjoyment of Jesus and his victory over
Satan and the powers of darkness might incline us to think less about our
private enjoyments and more about how we might love others?
What if we took Halloween
captive — along with “every thought” (2
Corinthians 10:5)
— as an opportunity for gospel advance and bringing true joy to the
unbelieving?
And what if those of us taking
this fresh approach to Halloween recognized that Christians hold a variety of
views about Halloween, and we gave grace to those who see the day differently
than we do?
Without Naiveté or Retreat
What if we didn’t merely go
with the societal flow and unwittingly float with the cultural tide into and
out of yet another Halloween? What if we didn’t observe the day with the same
naïveté as our unbelieving neighbors and coworkers?
And what if we didn’t overreact
to such nonchalance by simply withdrawing?
What if Halloween wasn’t a
night when Christians retreated in disapproval, but an occasion for storming
the gates of hell?
The Gospel Trick
What if we ran Halloween
through the grid of the gospel and pondered whether there might be a third path
beyond naïveté and retreat?
What if we took the
perspective that all of life, Halloween included, is an opportunity for gospel
advance?
What if we saw Halloween not
as a retreat but as a kind of gospel trick — an occasion to
extend Christ’s cause on precisely the night when Satan may feel his strongest?
What if we took to the
offensive on Halloween?
Isn’t
this how our God loves to show himself mighty? Just when the devil has a good
head of steam, God, like a skilled ninja, uses the adversary’s body weight
against him. It’s Satan’s own inertia that drives the stake into his heart.
Just like the cross. It’s a kind of divine “trick”: Precisely when the demonic
community thinks for sure they have Jesus cornered, he delivers the deathblow.
Wasn’t it a Halloween-like gathering of darkness and demonic festival at
Golgotha, the place of the Skull, when the God-man “disarmed
the powers and authorities [and] made a public spectacle of them, triumphing
over them” at the cross (Colossians
2:15)?
Marching on Hell
What if we were reminded
that Jesus, our invincible hero, will soon crush Satan under our feet (Romans
16:20)?
What if we really believed
deep down that our Jesus has promised with absolute certainty, “I will build my
church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew
16:18).
What if we realized that the
gates-of-hell thing isn’t a picture of a defensive church straining to hold
back the progressing Satanic legions, but rather an offensive church, on the
move, advancing against the cowering, cornered kingdom of darkness?
What if the church is the
side building the siegeworks?
What if the church is
marching forward, and Jesus is leading his church on an aggressive campaign
against the stationary and soon-to-collapse gates of hell?
What if we didn’t let
Halloween convince us for a minute that it’s otherwise?
What if Ephesians
6:12
reminded us that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the
rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic power over this present
darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places”?
What
if we remembered that it’s not our increasingly post-Christian society’s
Halloween revelers who are our enemies, but that our real adversary is the one
who has blinded them, and that we spite Satan as we rescue unbelievers with the
word of the cross?
Resisting the Devil
What
posture would Jesus have us take when we are told that our “adversary the devil
prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter
5:8)?
Naïveté? Retreat?
Rather: “Resist him, firm in your faith” (verse 9).
What if we had the gospel
gall to trust Jesus for this promise: “Resist the
devil, and he will flee from you.” (James
4:7)?
And what if resistance meant not
only holding our ground, but taking his?
What if we hallowed Jesus at
Halloween by pursuing gospel advance and going lovingly on the attack?
What if, like Martin Luther,
we didn’t cower in fear, but saw October 31 as a chance to serve notice to the
threshold of evil? What if we didn’t turn out our lights as if hiding, but left
a flaming bag on the very doorstep of the King of Darkness himself?
Orienting on Others
What if we saw October 31
not merely as an occasion for asking self-oriented questions about our
participation (whether we should or shouldn’t dress the kids up or carve
pumpkins), but for pursuing others-oriented acts of love?
What if we capitalized on
the opportunity to take a step forward in an ongoing process of witnessing to
our neighbors, co-workers, and extended families about who Jesus is and what he
accomplished at Calvary for the wicked like us?
What if we resolved not to
join the darkness by keeping our porch lights off?
What if we didn’t deadbolt
our doors, but handed out the best treats in the neighborhood as a faint echo
of the kind of grace our Father extends to us sinners?
Giving the Good Candy
What if thinking
evangelistically
about Halloween didn’t mean dropping tracts into children’s bags, but the good
candy — and seeing the evening as an opportunity to cultivate relationships
with the unbelieving as part of an ongoing process in which we plainly identify
with Jesus, get to know them well, and personally speak the good news of our
Savior into their lives?
And what if we made sure to keep
reminding ourselves that our supreme treasure isn’t our subjective zeal for the
mission, but our Jesus and his objective accomplishment for us?
The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of
the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
– Jesus in Matthew
9:37–38
