Grace in Halloween

There are a thousand blogs and articles out there on Christians and Halloween. It can be a touchy subject and there are as many opinions on how Christians "should" handle this dark holiday as there are people.  This year has been one of conviction for me.  Not because of our participation in Halloween traditions, but because of why we have chosen not to participate in the past.

For most of my life I have held the belief that Halloween should be shunned because of its roots in paganism and its celebration of evil. All the celebration stands for contradicts the very foundations of our faith!

I don't know what changed this year, but I began to see quite a few contradictions and even unbiblical thinking in how I approached Halloween. While it is a pagan holiday with traditions based off pagan ritual, so is Christmas and Easter. Both Christian "high holidays" were designed to "christianize" pagan worship. It is very inconsistent to tell my children we can do all the fun things of Christmas and Easter because we have found ways to turn pagan ritual into reminders of God's love, grace and mercy, but we can't do that with Halloween.  Why is it God can "redeem" Christmas and Easter, but not Halloween?

My primary goal with school this year is helping the children learn to look for how God reveals himself to us through science, history and literature. Our catechism question this week has been "How does God carry out His decrees?" The answer: "God carries out His decrees in creation and providence." God reveals His plan, purpose and character through the study of creation and His-story. If God's plan of glory and grace is evident through all of creation and all of history, that must include Halloween. Does that mean by ignoring Halloween, we were missing part of God's revelation of Himself?

Its been heavy on my heart the last few days, and this morning I began to see some answers.

1 - God has redeemed Halloween. October 31 is not just Halloween, it is also Reformation Day. It is not an accident that the two celebrations land on the same day. When Martin Luther nailed the 95 Thesis on the church door in Wittenburgh, God was using him to call the Church back to grace. Back to complete reliance on Him for salvation, peace, comfort and redemption.  The Reformation called Christians away from practices that relied on human effort to escape the "evil spirits" and back to the One who has already defeated them. In the midst of a ritual that celebrates death, the pounding of nails  directs us to the One who died so that we may live. There is no more need to light fires and disguise ourselves to scare away evil, because Christ is The Light, and he, as fully God, took on human form, to completely defeat The Evil one.

2 - The rituals of Halloween point us to God's glory, grace and truth. What Satan intended for evil, God can use for good. The Master Deceiver has taken grains of truth, and twisted them.  Jack-o-lanterns and costumes were meant to scare off evil spirits. It is very true that light always repells darkness, but no amount of human endeavor can do it. Instead, the Light of Life has already defeated all Darkness, and as His followers, we take that light to the rest of the world. We are the true "Jack-o-lanterns" - lights on a hill. All of creation must go through a transformation into new creatures to be freed from the entrapment of evil.  It is not an outward covering that is needed, but inward transformation that replaces the disfigurement of sin with the righteous perfection of Christ.  The entire world is searching for "candy" - something that makes life more enjoyable and worthwhile. As Christians, we are to open our doors and share all the good things God has given us with a world walking around in darkness.

This year we won't ignore Halloween. We will talk about Martin Luther and the Church's return to grace. We will discuss how we have no need to fear anything, because Christ has defeated it all. We paint pumpkins and discussed how we are the light of the world. The children dress as Minions (because it is fun) as we thank God for transforming our hearts. We are not trick-or-treating, or giving out candy, because the younger children are still afraid of many of the costumes that will be in our neighborhood tonight, but I will be thinking of new ideas for next year on how to share God's grace in the midst of all the darkness.

God, in His ever-present, all powerful being, has graciously redeemed even Halloween!

Family Purpose

So why families?  What is the point of having families? What is the goal of your family? What was God's intent for families?

The purpose of family is a hotly debated topic in our culture and within churches. What consists of a family? What is it's role? Where does its responsibilities start and where are their limits? What does "family" look like?

God's story of family begins at the beginning. Genesis 1 God creates the sky, sun, moon, earth, plants, animals and man. The first account of the creation story ends with:

So God created man in his own image.

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them. 

And God blessed them. And God said to them "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion...And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. 

God created man, in God's image, as male and female. The first thing we are told about mankind is its reflection of God as male and female. It is not the male that reflects God. It is not the female reflects God. It is male and female together that reflects God's image. Marriage, first and foremost, is a man and a woman united to reflect God.  The first command this Reflection is given, mirrors the very act God had just completed - be fruitful and multiply. Create children. And why children? To fill the earth and rule it as caretakers for the Creator. Chapter 2 goes on to give further explain God's arrangement  The female is created as a helper for the male. This is not a subservient arrangement, as both humans share the same task, but it is the man that is ultimately held accountable. It is man who is charged with naming all creation. It is the man to whom God gives His directions to pass on to others. It  is the man who is held accountable when things begin to go wrong.

The first 3 words of chapter 3 give the first hint of trouble: Now the serpent  What is a serpent doing in

a garden? And why is this serpent talking to the woman?  Not only is it talking to her, it is lying to her and taking advantage of the woman's exaggerations of God's initial commands. No one kept the serpent out of the garden. No one corrected the woman's understanding of God's command. (She states she is not allowed to touch the tree in the center of the garden. God had stated they were not to eat from it.) So Eve takes the fruit, eats it, and turns and gives it to her husband - who it seems had been next to her the whole time!  The first sin was not in Eve's eating of the forbidden fruit, but in Adam's failure to tend to, instruct, and  protect creation. 

It doesn't take long for the family, and the world to fall apart. By the 6th chapter of the Bible, God destroys the earth because of the corruption of humanity. God restores the earth from its watery grave, brings Noah and his sons onto dry land and commands them "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth....into your hand [all creation] is given". 

Again, it all very quickly falls apart and mankind must be scattered across the globe and nations begin to form.

Then God reveals the next part of his plan. He calls a man to leave everything, to start over, and to be set apart.  He promises Abram that through him, and his family, the entire world will be blessed. God sets aside a family to restore the earth to God's original intent. 

God gave His chosen people, His chosen family, a set of laws designed to set them apart so they would be an example of Him to the rest of the world.  God put into place a means of transmitting those laws, and assuring they are understood and upheld. Moses was to give them to the elders of each tribe. The elders of the tribes were to teach the adults. The adults were to teach their children. The nuclear family's main purpose was to transmit God's Word from one generation to another so God's redemption would be evident through the nation of Israel. 

They fail again, and again and again. For us, the hope lies in this: God used every failure of His people, of individuals, to bring about His ultimate plan of Redemption. It was through the prostitution of Rahab, the inter-faith marriage of Ruth and Boaz and the adultery of David, that Christ was brought into the world.

So what does this have to do with us, as post-resurrection Christian families?  We have been given the exact same purpose. The famous Ephesians 6 passage on wives, husbands and children comes in the middle of an explanation of how Christians are to live as "imitators of God". The purpose of the Christian family, wife, husband and children, is to fulfill the mission of the Church and pass it on from generation to generation.  Our families exist to fulfill the Great Commission - to preach the gospel to all the world. Our families' purpose is to declare the glory of God. 

This is vastly different from many of the current understandings of the purpose of family. Families do not exist primarily to raise a lot of well-behaved, God-fearing children. Families do not exist to make its individual members happy.  Families do not exist primarily to provide structure to society, to educate children, to transmit culture, to ensure people are cared for etc...etc...etc....  All of these are great benefits of family, but not its purpose. Our concern with things like education, discipline, marriage, communication, and nurturing is not that we have a healthy family, marriage and children. It is not to somehow earn God's favor. It is not even to guarantee the salvation of the next generation. It is because those are the means we use within our family, and as members of the Church, to glorify God and to declare His love, grace and mercy to the rest of the world. Our families will never be perfect, but God will always use our imperfections to His glory.

Love, Submit, Respect

Wives, submit to you own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her....husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself....Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and fold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Ephesians 5: 22-25, 28a, 31-33

It was the beginning of this journey God is bringing me on in more fully understanding grace within the context of marriage, family and child-rearing. We had made the decision to homeschool our oldest, so I was attending a local homeschool convention to find out what we were getting ourselves into. Taking a break from the overwhelming curriculum hall and "how-to" presentations, I sat in the back of a marriage seminar to nurse the baby, sit for a few minutes, and allow my brain time to absorb all I was learning. While my wriggly son only allowed me about 15 minutes to listen to the speaker, it was 15 minutes that would change my life, marriage and parenting. For the first time I heard the absolute necessity for my husband to feel respected - and that respect looked very different from what I thought.  

Ephesians 5 is probably the most referenced, and most misused passage on marriage. Traditionally it has been used to justify demeaning women. More modern Christians will dismiss it as "cultural" to only New Testament life and not relevant to our more progressive society. Both completely miss the intention of the passage - mutual submission.  Taken within context of the surrounding passages, it is commanding wives and husbands submit themselves to each other out of love for Christ and as a reflection of Christ's love for the church.

The command given to men to "love your wives" was revolutionary for the time. In a time when women were at best a means to gain property, status and ensure decedents, the idea of love within marriage would have been very progressive indeed! Paul dramatically elevates the status of women within the family. Even more than the idea of "love" within marriage, is the extent to which this love is to go. "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church."  No longer are wives there to be used, but they are to be so incredibly loved, cherished and honored that a husband gives up his life, dreams and ambitions for her. She is to be his primary concern. His life is to be lived for her benefit - to meet her inner most needs without regard for his personal gain!  

Wives, if our husbands could perfectly fulfill that command, wouldn't the command we are given be easy? It is easy to submit to someone who we know has our best interest at heart all the time. But just like us, our husbands are not perfect. They fail at this, frequently - and that is when it becomes very difficult for us to comply with the command to submit. Actually, a more accurate word is seen at the end of this passage's English translation - respect. Submission has a lot of negative connotations in our culture, but when taking into account the difficulty of translating Koine Greek into modern English and the literary techniques of Greek, inherent in this passage is more the modern understanding of "respect". Wives, we are commanded to respect our husbands, no matter what. We are not respecting them for what they do or because they deserve it, but because they are brothers in Christ and God has given them the great burden of leading our family. We respect them out of respect for Christ.

So how do we do this? How do we respect our husbands, even while they fail? (As a quick aside, I am assuming your husband is well-intentioned. This is in no way a command to stay in an abusive situation - whether physical, emotional, psychological or sexual. If you are in that type of situation, PLEASE, seek Godly help.)

1 - Actions speak louder than words 1 Peter 3:1 "Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct."  Showing respect, even when our husband's actions are not respectable, goes farther in touching the hearts of our men than any amount of nagging, lecturing or demanding can. This may be one of the most difficult ways for us to demonstrate grace to our husbands - but it also speaks the most loudly to them. When you need to discuss an issue, do it with as much humility and respect as you can, remembering that you also fall short, you hurt him and God has equally forgiven both of you. A godly man knows when he has fallen short, and seeing your unfailing respect, no matter what, will draw him closer to God and to you. I have seen couples able to work through major conflicts, including affairs, when the wife is willing to show respect despite it all. 

2 - Avoid demeaning, demorilzing, name calling and accusatory language.  Explain how you feel and what his actions, or inactions, communicate to you.  Those infamous "I" statements are a great communication tool you can use to express your concern and need without leaving him feeling attacked.  Saying things like, "I am hurt that the spare room hasn't been finished yet because having that extra work space is very important to me. If you do not want to do it, that is fine, but please let me know so I can find an alternative." is going to go a lot farther than, "You care more for your video games than me. I have been waiting 3 months for you to finish that spare room and it still isn't done! I can't get my project done until that room is finished."

3 - Make requests instead of making demands. Our husbands are not children. They are men God has entrusted with great responsibilities, and we need to treat them as such. You wouldn't walk into your boss's office and demand something be done immediately. We should not do the same to our husbands. Asking for help, for projects to be completed or for actions to be changed gives your husband the opportunity to choose to love you instead of feeling forced into it. It communicates you respect him, his God-given roll in your home, and his choices. The key to this is once you have asked, allowing him to freely make the choice of what he is going to do - without pressure or guilt being placed on him and without allowing hurt and resentment to build up in you. "Could you clean out the spare room so I can turn it into my work space? I would really like to be able to set it up this weekend if possible so I can start on Christmas projects." or "I could really use some more work space. I was thinking I'd use the spare room. Could you help me clean it out or do you have another suggestion?" instead of "I need more work space. Clean out the spare room this weekend. Please."   If he chooses not to, find a way to deal with it that does not leave him feeling cornered - that may mean you do it yourself without grumbling or complaining or you find an alternative without holding his choice against him. 

4 - Always talk about him in a way that is uplifting. Never talk down about him in front of others.  That "girl talk" where we all stand around and complain about our husbands is very hurtful to our men.  The old adage "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." is a good rule of thumb. There are times we need to seek Godly advice and wisdom from other God-fearing women, but we can do that in a way that still protects our husbands from outside ridicule. We need to keep our focus on our own hearts, souls and minds instead of trying to change our husbands' (which we can't do anyway). Be very wise about who you go to and how you phrase things. 

5 - Learn to let the little things go. Underwear on the floor. Toilet seats left up. Dirty dishes in the sink. We all have those little things that annoy us to no end. We can love and respect our husbands by choosing to let them go. Instead of obstacles we have to work around, think of them as opportunities to serve your spouse - even if he doesn't notice!  Just like us, our husbands do things that annoy us, not because they don't care or don't love us, but because they just don't think about it. They don't see the world, our homes and us the same way we do - and we need to respect those differences. I can guarantee he does the same thing for you! 

6 -   Know your man.  Read the books. Listen to the experts. But above all you need to know your man, how he works and what makes him tick. No matter what the research, experts or your friends say, every man is unique. Every man has different needs and preferences  What may feel respectful to most men, may be horrifying to yours. Be willing to ask how your actions and words make him feel. Watch carefully for how your words and actions effect him. What you may feel is innocent and "normal", may not feel that way to him. If you are not sure if he is feeling respect communicated from you, ask him - and be willing to listen to his response with an open heart.  I had to come to terms that many of the things I do without thinking, hurt my husband. I may not be ill-intentioned, or even upset, but the differences in our upbringings and personalities means I need to change and be more purposeful about how I say and do things. I did a lot of damage to our marriage simply because I wasn't aware of how I was hurting him. 

"Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brother love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing" (I Peter 3:8-9)