A Letter To Halloween

Dear Halloween,

Thank you for the invitation to your celebrations this evening. However, I regret to inform you that I must decline. Tonight you come on your annual visit to our neighbourhood. However, you seem to arrive earlier and earlier every year in our shops. Ghosts, witches, zombies, blood, spiders, vampires…Their costumes and props are cramming the shelves. I applaud your effort into the consumer market.

You try to penetrate the thoughts of young children, and often you succeed with tempting treats and tiresome tricks. You find it amusing to throw parties. Well most of us do, but you like to strike terror and fear into your theme. Your theme is fairly predictable too. Every year, the same ideas circulate through films and television; the same story line, perhaps with a more sinister twist and a bit more gore. I know you are likely to say the same about Christmas and Easter and you are right, they have been grossly commercialised, much to your enjoyment I suppose. As you know the real meaning of Christmas and Easter has been watered down in society. You may think your master has won, but sadly the victory really lies with the Saviour of the World and the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. But hey, we’re talking about you, right?

Well Halloween, tonight you will not be welcome in our home. All year you are around, but people just do not recognise you without your scary costume and convincing makeup. People forget about you until October. But not me. I know that what you stand for is not good, but it is dark and evil. Why would I celebrate with you for one night of the year when I have to hear and see what you represent on a daily basis? Some may laugh and sneer at me, and perhaps you may have won them over at the moment.

But Halloween, evil and darkness is at your very core whether we choose to ignore this aspect about you or not. There is so much evil prevalent in the world, I am just not up to celebrating it with you. Instead, I choose to stay at home and write a letter to you to express why I am just not up to going out in the cold and the dark to scare others and get sweets.

Thank you for providing an opportunity to enjoy pumpkins, but I like to think that Thanksgiving Day says it a little better than you, with its pumpkin pie and desire to be thankful for the provisions we have. I know that you like to create an appearance of fun and frolics, and in many ways you do. I see many people having fun in their costumes as they eat your sweets and try to be their most frightening.

But how about you take off your mask, wipe off your makeup and turn away from the darkness? Why sit in the dark when you can see everything by the Light of the World. Why try to deceive souls, when you can be received by the One who knows the deepest, darkest fears and secrets of our lives? What’s the point in invoking fear, instilling evil thoughts and tempting people into a night that celebrates wickedness? There is a more wonderful way that promises a life that, although it is still a part of this dark world, it is no longer of this world. You can choose to turn from wreaking havoc, and instead turn into the arms of wonderful Saviour who has saved us all from evil and death.

No grim reapers for those that believe in Jesus. Halloween, the only reaping you will do if you keep on like this, is reaping what you sow. Sow darkness, you will get darkness.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)

Choose Light, and you will have all you ever need.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

Halloween, I am sorry that you have not been part of this Light. Maybe as the pumpkins start to decompose, the costumes get recycled or thrown out and you are forgotten once more, then people will realise that what you offer is temporary and futile, but what the Lord offers, the true Light of the world, is everlasting and eternal.

Rejoicing in the Truth always,

Ruth Clemence