Lawlessness is sin. The Apostle John wrote: Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. (I John 3:4) The Apostle Paul, in 1 Thessalonians, calls lawlessness a mystery. There is then, in Scripture, a compound of mystery, sin, and lawlessness. When we try to explain sin, we do not find well gained human knowledge about the length and breadth of the issue. It is both a noun and a verb – as love is. Scripture argues through the mystery of sin at least to this extent – that it is both something one does, and something that reflects on the meaning of mankind as related to God’s order. It relates to thought and activity accounted for in the condition of fault in the human race. This latter point is particularly offensive to those who find human depravity to be insulting. It is this condition that Christ addresses, and provides the born again experience to escape sin’s large consequence – separation from God. When even a day like Halloween exists and grows, the race trivializes spiritual and social problems. The main problem is man’s condition of sin, countered well in the redemption of Christ. Halloween may not seem dangerous, and may not be for many who go along with it, but it trivializes Satan, sin and death. Has any Christian asked God’s blessing on the twisting of the eve of All Saint’s Day through perplexing celebration?
The day has been usurped by distortion from those who trivialize fear and death. The Church should not find the ghoulish practices fitting for any society. Catholics accent the November 1st date for saints who modeled the Christian life. It is bizarre that secular Halloween has emerged, and odd religions seek to take it over. We have general similarity for secular/spiritual societies in approaching identity for a main event as seen in Christmas Eve for introduction to Christmas, or the evening of the closing year giving birth to the New Year on the day following. If a saint is not afforded a day, or even deserving remembrance, has not been named, that saint is remembered on All Saints Day, an honorable catch-all perception. All worthy persons do not achieve celebrity status in the church, so they are acknowledged on November One. Hebrews 11 notes that there are many worthy persons not remembered in the earthly context, but well remembered by God. Published calendars now remind us on this date about witches, seldom about saints.
We ought to resist degradation of any day not leading to human elevation, any day that cannot be joined in celebration by the church. The church reflects on days honoring veterans, or the founding of the nation. Thankfully the church has not dignified Halloween as the general public has embraced it in celebration. There is a common human trickling downward leading to decline in persons and society. Others see it, and analysts warn of losses in life likely brought on by the violence, the bizarre and gross behavior, the degradation of sex, and the trivialization of a score of other issues common to daily life. Does society fathom that the general patterns in daily life can degrade us: the preoccupation with the gossip of the internet; the oddities of some news reporting; the decay of idealism; the attention afforded the non-hero; the common put-down by children and adults; and, the other factors that pull down daily life for the populace? Although seeing benefits a free and energetic society achieved for a nation, analysts are shocked, and wrestle with an underlying unhappiness in current society. Scripture warns about unsatisfactory patterns that appeal, patterns insufficient to accomplish human purposes and ideals. To extricate ourselves from serious trivialities will require some change of mind under God. The problem, of course, is larger than Halloween, but this oddity in the calendar affects negatively our ideals. We ought to focus on constructive affirmations and muffle depressing negatives. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020