"Trick-or-Treat"

A response to the negativism of Halloween generated by Christians.

Trick-or-treat - it won’t be long before we start hearing those infamous words as our doorbells start ringing from the little ghosts and goblins that come seeking treats. And treats we better have or we will be tricked!
My daughter, Miriam has really gotten the concept of trick-or-treating down to a tee. In fact, she carries her pumpkin around in the house and pretends to be trick-or-treating. This year will be a lot of fun as we take Miriam around as she applies what she has been practicing now for several weeks. Halloween is always a lot of fun, both for children and adults! However, some see this time of innocent fun as being "anti-Christian," claiming that it’s the devil’s holiday! While it is true, that Halloween has a pagan origin, it can and does offer some vital spiritual implications for our lives as Christians. Besides, let’s not be a grouch and ruin the fun for children and adults.

There’s an old Scottish prayer which asserts;

"From ghosts and goblins, to long-legged beasts;
And things that go bump in the night -
Good Lord, deliver us!"

Maybe you have prayed that prayer before, or a similar one when you were a child and you feared the monsters under your bed and the ghosts in your closet. In a sense, we as Christians pray a prayer very similar to that; "Deliver us from evil..."
Halloween is a very old holiday. It’s origins go back thousands of years to approximately 5 B.C. And, as you might expect, Halloween has had many influences along the way from different cultures and traditions. It originally derived from the Celtic festival marking the end of the summer. The holiday was called Samhain and was a festival that marked the eve of the Celtic New Year, which began on November 1. The fall harvest was complete and winter was just around the corner. The Celts believe that the sun was fading away at this time of the year. For the next several months darkness prevailed. The Celts believed that during Samhain the veil separating life from death was at its thinnest. On the evening of October 31, it was believed that evil spirits and the souls of the dead passed through the barrier and preyed upon the living. Therefore, the Celts would extinguish any fires in their homes to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in costumes, parading around town and looting, trying to be as destructive as possible so that they might frighten away these evil spirits.
The Church would later try to do some frightening away of it’s own. As is the case for many pagan holidays, the Church sought to purge them, along with their customs, practices and beliefs, by replacing them with holidays for Christians. They even converted many of the pagan customs and symbols of these holidays giving them Christian significance. Thus the Church taught that we don’t need to fear ghosts and goblins, long-legged beasts and things that go bump in the night because within us is another ghost - the Holy Ghost. And the Church used this as an opportunity to remember our deceased loved ones and friends, and called it All Hallow’s Mass, which later became known as All Saints’ or Souls’ Day. Now, as you might imagine, it was hard to give up some of these annual autumn rituals and customs. Thus, we have Halloween (derived from All Hallow’s Eve) as a reminder of the origins of this holiday.
I always find All Souls and Saints’ Day to be meaningful. It is an opportunity the Church gives us to pause and consider the saints who have gone to be with the Lord. I always take full advantage of this occasion by remembering my deceased loved ones and lighting candles in their memory. The candles we light on this day are a simple reminder that, though our loved ones are gone physically, the light of their presence continues to burn in our hearts.
Many of the customs and traditions that have developed along the way during Halloween have spiritual implications. One such custom that comes to mind is the "Jack-O-Lantern." The idea of the Jack-O-Lantern came from an 18th century Irish folk tale about a man named Stingy Jack. It was said that Stingy Jack was notorious for playing tricks on the Devil. After his death, Jack was too mean be allowed entrance into heaven, but even the Devil didn’t want him because of his numerous tricks. Thus Jack was left to wander the earth endlessly, lighting his path with a little piece of coal inside a hallowed out turnip. It was from this legend that came the Irish tradition of placing jack-o-lanterns made of turnips and sometimes other vegetables in windows or by doors on Halloween. The jack-o-lanterns were meant to scare away Stingy Jack and all of the other spirits that are said to roam the earth on that night from the Samhain tradition. It wasn’t until the tradition was brought to the United States and Canada, by Irish immigrants in the late 1800's, that pumpkins (which were more abundant) were used to make jack-o-lanterns.
In thinking about this tradition, we are reminded that the life of a believer is in many ways like a pumpkin. Just as we would open the top of a pumpkin and clean it out so that we might place a light inside to illuminate it, so God has done the same with our lives. Through our profession of faith and baptism, God has cleansed and filled us with his Spirit that our lives might be illuminated with the light of his power and presence.
Therefore, I encourage you, as you celebrate Halloween this year, to see the spiritual significance this day has for believers. And, don’t forget, to have some fun too - I know I will!