Halloween and the Communion of Saints

The above video gives us a reminder of the power of the gospel this time of year. Today is Halloween or All Hallows’ Eve, which is the evening before All Saints Day in the church calendar. What is the point of this time of year? This quote from The Worship Sourcebook explains:

Christian worship is an occasion for expressing communion of the saints as well as for calling attention to the profound gifts God gives us through others in the body of Christ. Worship on such occasions involves reflection on and thanksgiving for the gifts of all who have given witness to Christ’s love and demonstrated the fruits of the Spirit. It also calls for recognition of Christ’s continued work in the church through imperfect people who are nevertheless “called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7). This theme may be celebrated at any time during the year. Many churches have focused on this theme on All Saints’ Day (November 1), appropriating this day not as an occasion to invoke the saints but to give thanks for all who have gone before and to celebrate Christian unity with the “great cloud of witnesses” that precedes us (Heb. 12:1). The focus on All Saints’ Day should not be on extraordinary achievements of particular Christians but on the grace and work of God through ordinary people.

For Protestant Christians, October 31st also celebrates Reformation Day since Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses on a church door in Wittenberg in 1517 (to celebrate check out the Luther insult generator). This theme of reformation is a reminder this time of year to be continuously formed by the Word of God. Christians and the Church are prone to wander away from the essentials of the Christian faith so we must again and again turn to the Scriptures to reform us. We do so not just for the sake of one local church or denomination but for all Christian churches–Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox.

So get out there in your neighborhood and partake of the festivities of this All Hallows’ Eve. May your participation declare, as the video above articulates:

For this is the nature of shadow and gloom;

In the cleaning of glory there can be no room.

What force is resourced by the echoing black?

When brightness ignites can the shadow push back?

These ‘forces’ of darkness, if such can be called

Are banished by brilliance, by blazing enthralled.

So the Bible begins with this fore-resolved fight;

For a moment the darkness … then “Let there be Light!”

First grief in the gloom,then joy from the East.

First valley of shadow, then mountaintop feast.

First wait for Messiah, then long-promised dawn.

First desolate Friday and then Easter morn.

The armies of darkness while doing their worst,

Can never extinguish this Dazzling Sunburst.

So ridicule rogues if you must play a role;

But beware of getting lost in that bottomless hole.

The triumph is not with the forces of night.

It dawned with the One who said “I am the Light.”

So we join with the saints who have gone before us in asking darkness and death (1 Cor 15:55-57):

Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.