Trick or Treat

It's Halloween! When we celebrate, are we worshiping the devil? Absolutely not! So, does Jesus fit in anywhere? He does for Christians! Read my sermon to find out what I think about the holiday.

Halloween is almost here! Trick or treat here in Miami County is… what… Tuesday night? You can’t miss Halloween these days. It has become a really big deal in recent years. The stores start to display bags of candy and jack o’ lanterns just as soon as Labor Day is over. As the calendar gets close to October, newspapers start to advertise all kind of attractions guaranteed to make you scream: the House of Death, the Trail of Terror and the Corn Maze of Doom. Even the grownups have gotten in on things. Whole neighborhoods throw Halloween costume parties that are definitely not for the kiddies! Halloween has ballooned from being only one day to become an entire season for merchandisers! You might be surprised to know that retail profits during the two months before Halloween are second only to those during the Christmas season. Yes, Halloween is a big deal these days.

That’s a real problem for some Christians. These folks want to get rid of all the skeletons, ghosts and witches that are everywhere this time of year – in the stores, on the television, and decorating our homes – because they believe that all the Halloween hullabaloo is evidence that we have somehow become a nation of devil worshipers. They are afraid that by celebrating Halloween, we are inviting evil into our lives. I have to respectfully disagree with them. It seems to me that exactly the opposite is true! When we surround ourselves with scary things, I think that we’re actually trying to control the evil around us.

That’s actually how Halloween got started in the first place. People in ancient cultures were convinced that supernatural evil was all around them – ghosts and ghouls and evil spirits. At the time of the harvest, when the days got short and the nights became long and cold, they believed that those spirits grew stronger; and it was only by taking actions to protect themselves that they would escape the evil of those spirits. People disguised themselves so that spirits who might want to harm them wouldn’t recognize them. They carried candles in hollowed-out gourds so that they would always be in the presence of light. They even carried sweet treats with them – just in case they had to calm down an unfriendly ghost with a sweet tooth! Nowadays, we wear costumes for fun, we carve jack o’ lanterns for decoration, and we pass out candy to entertain kids in the neighborhood. But the people who started these customs weren’t doing them for fun. They were trying to control the evil that they saw all around them.

Evil spirits were certainly real for the writers of the New Testament. The story from Matthew that you heard this morning is only one of the many gospel stories that mention Jesus casting out evil spirits (Matthew 8:28-32). Jesus has crossed the Sea of Galilee and has arrived in Gentile territory. And who are the first people to meet him? Two men who are possessed by demons. They live among the tombs of the local graveyard; and they are so violent that they attack anybody who approaches them. But -- surprise! The demons know Jesus! “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they scream at him. “You’re going to drive us out!” And that’s exactly what Jesus does. It only takes one word from him – “Go!” – and the evil spirits rush out of the two men and into a herd of pigs, who promptly stampede down into the water and drown themselves. Now that’s a Halloween story for you! If you want to read more about Jesus casting out evil spirits, there are plenty of other stories just like this one in the gospels. (I counted over 20 of them.)

These days, of course, we don’t expect to run into an evil spirit on Main Street, or even in the local cemetery. They only show up in movies like Ghostbusters or The Exorcist. We may pull them out of mothballs for Halloween; but in November, we tuck them back into storage for another year. For most of us, evil spirits only exist in stories. Lots of people, in fact, not only don’t believe in evil spirits; they don’t even believe in evil! They think that “evil” is an old-fashioned idea that was invented by ignorant, superstitious people. Instead of blaming “evil” for the problems that surround us, they talk about “poor choices” and “inappropriate behavior.” They point out – and rightly so – that many of the behaviors that used to be labeled as “evil” were really due to medical conditions. Evil spirits don’t cause seizures; they’re the result of epilepsy. When people behave in odd or unexpected ways, we don’t call an exorcist these days; we call a doctor.

I can’t help wondering, though, whether we’re ignoring something important. Do we really believe that there is no such thing as evil? It seems to me that there is simply too much pain and suffering in our world to attribute all of it to poor choices and inappropriate behavior. Students of history point to the horrors of the Holocaust during World War II: torture camps filled with emaciated men and women; and ovens that burned the remains of those who were executed in gas chambers. Today, we point to Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Mohamar Khadaffi as examples of evil. The intentional suffering that these people inflicted on innocent men, women and children goes way beyond poor choices. What can we call it but “evil”? More to the point, what can we do about it? Witch costumes, jack o’ lanterns, and Hershey Bars can’t stand up to evil that starves, tortures and massacres. It’s way more powerful than all of us!

So, do we simply have to resign ourselves to living with it? No. No, we don’t. This morning’s story from Matthew points to our hope in the face of evil. It points to the one whose power is greater even than that of evil spirits. It points to the one who can conquer evil with a word. It points to Jesus Christ. If the gospels have anything to say about Jesus, they say that he has power over evil. Wherever Jesus went, he fought evil, bringing healing to those who were broken, freedom to those who were oppressed, and relief to those who were suffering. He even brought life to the dead. Jesus is the one who can rescue us from evil. It may still be all around us; but it has no power over those of us who call on Jesus’ name!

We began our worship this morning singing the great Reformation hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God: an affirmation that through Jesus Christ, God has broken the power of evil once and for all. God is our refuge from all the suffering that evil tries to bring to us. God is our mighty fortress, the One who keeps us safe. Oh, evil is still around; and we all have to face it. You do; and I do; and even little Skylar who was just baptized will one day come face to face with it. But those of us who belong to Jesus Christ don’t have to be afraid of it; because he has taken care of it for us once and for all.

So go ahead – enjoy Halloween! Play spooky music when the kids come by… light a candle in that jack o’ lantern sitting on the porch… hand out Kit Kat candy bars! Look at all the costumes as the children parade by – princesses, pirates, witches and ghosts. Listen to them cry, “Trick or Treat!” And smile – because we know that the trick is on evil. Because of Jesus Christ, its power has been broken. We don’t have to be afraid of it ever again! Although the battle against evil is still raging, the war is won; and Christ is victorious! Now that’s a treat that we can celebrate not just on Halloween, but every single day of our lives!