All Hallows' Eve (Halloween)

It’s that time of year again when the pumpkins, ghosts, skeletons, lanterns and the like start popping up all around us. This all leads up to the “trick or treat” experience that all the children love as they go door to door to get candy with the subliminal threat of a trick if it is not received.  
                            

Just like the Christmas and Easter holidays get a bit distorted with material things, our conventional Halloween night somewhat distorts the real celebration of All Hallows Eve and All Hallows Day. In the Christian Church these are referred to as All Saints’ Eve and All Saints’ Day.

Going back some 800 years, much of the Christian Church has celebrated All Saints’ Day on the first of November.  This has been a celebration of known and unknown Christian Saints. This celebration has broadly included folks like you and me who have lived their lives in proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord.

At some point, soon after the creation of All Saints’ Day in the church, the celebration of All Hallows Eve began as it is the night before All Saints’ or All Hallows Day.  The terms Hallows and Saints are interchangeable and both mean “holy ones”.

The celebration of Halloween (Hallows’ Eve) in our present society and culture takes on a secular or non-spiritual nature as well as a religious celebration. It has been practiced in the Christian Church for a long and fruitful period of time as our dead “holy ones” are remembered.

As with many of our celebrated Christian Holy Days, like Christmas and Easter, All Saints’ Day and Eve have a connection with past Pagan festivals. In this instance, remembering their dead. The people of many past cultures have remembered their dead. These cultures have had various understandings about death and have celebrated death in many ways.

For many years, Christians have dealt with death on All Hallows’ Eve and have proclaimed Christ's victory over death as they continue to live their lives in the hope of everlasting life in Christ. Early Christians would gather and worship in remembering the saints' victories over evil. Some would act this out with displays of Jesus’ overcoming evil.  It was customary to use costumes and masks in these demonstrations.

Thoughts of death and evil are a struggle for us humans. As with many negative aspects of life, we allow our sense of humor to help us. Many comedians have made us laugh with witty comments about things we fear. Our Halloween celebration with the scary costumes, images and trick or treating is a way we deal with death and evil. That is, by addressing them straight on and having fun and a laugh over the things we fear.

In our humorous attacks on death and evil, we have a confidence and a hope in Christ’s victory over darkness in the world. In a nutshell, we do not glorify evil in our celebration of All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween). Instead we lift ourselves up to the Lord in knowledge of the eternal life we are given. This gift of eternal life assures us a safe passage over death and evil through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And now we can joyfully celebrate Halloween as we see the close relationship it has with the Easter story and Christ’s victories won for us as He died for us on the cross. Happy Halloween!