Life in Pastor’s House: Halloween
Can good Christian kids celebrate Halloween?
Short answer: yes!
Our house has been stocked with make-believe and dress up clothes for years. A major part of child development is pretending. My children have enjoyed dressing up as soldiers, fire fighters, police officers, and video game heroes. In the past few years we have finally begun to dabble in ballerinas and princesses. It is pretty rare that one of the Dakota kids wants to dress as a “bad guy”, but our home has been filled with enough Biblical and literary evidence for the existence of “bad guys”. . . and if you are acting out a fairy tale. . . someone has to be the Big Bad Wolf. The account of David would not be as impressive without Goliath.
So what of dressing up and walking about town begging candy from strangers?
I simply cannot fathom how such shenanigans can harm my children’s faith. We spend 365 days a year teaching our children our faith. We spend 365 days a year remembering our baptism, in which we were covered in, and clothed in Christ’s righteousness.Today is no exception. Dressing as an old fashioned stylized burglar is not going to introduce our 13 year old into a life of crime. Our 8 year old will never be a ninja, and I’m pretty sure that the twins will never be princesses or kitty cats. . . those are things you are born into! What we put on our outsides for fun, does not change what we were given in baptism.
In our increasingly isolated society, what better way to interact with our neighbors! In this holiday which ties young and old together through our love of candy we can rejoice in our freedom over the devil! Christ has won the battle for us! We need not fear the devil (who is crouching at our doors daily. . .not just today), because Jesus has conquered him!
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8: 35-39
We Lutherans are doubly blessed today! Not only can we dress up, mock the devil and eat too much candy, we can also rejoice in the gifts of the Reformation, as today we remember how Dr. Martin Luther restored the Gospel to the people so that we can be sure, yes, fully sure, of our salvation!
Want to know more? Here is a wonderful devotion on the Gospel of Halloween.
And for fun, a little bit of Lutheran Satire!
Does your family participate in Halloween activities? Why or why not?
I love this so much. Thank you!
Krystle recently posted..Birth Photography- Training
What a great post! I have never heard it expressed so well before. How wonderful to celebrate Christian Freedom!
Thank you! (And we had a lot of fun too!)
Twitter: dakotapam
We didn’t do Halloween this year for two reasons:
1. Apparently at size 5T, girls are supposed to dress suggestively. And I didn’t have time to make something appropriate.
2. The candy detox lasted two horrible days last year and we didn’t want to put ourselves through that.
I don’t know what we’ll do about next year, but it sure was nice to pop some popcorn and watch a movie together.
I HATE the suggestive costumes for girls. As you can see, even Emily’s princess dress ended up being a nice church dress. . .who needs bare arms this time of year? I have a terrible sweet tooth, sadly, so candy is kind of an all year round thing here! I make up for it with lots of healthy food for dinner:)
Twitter: dakotapam