Read: Mark 5:1-8

This week at our monthly church council meeting, one of the members started with a short devotion, as is customary. Some of the opening words caught me by surprise, “Halloween brings out the best in us”. Immediately, I thought back to the previous night when a variety of monsters, clowns, princesses, movie characters, etc. came parading to our door holding out bags for candy.  They were cute, sometimes creepy, and mostly harmless, but still, I wondered where the devotion was going. 

It continued by saying, in essence, Halloween is the night that people come to us sometimes at their most frightening, wearing their cruelest masks…and they are met with free candy, a tangible expression of love and grace. Sometimes they come to us donning their greatest dreams and hopes, like those dressed as princesses or doctors. They too are met with grace, smiles, and encouragement to keep dreaming. Even the creepy clown who knocked on my door received candy. Halloween, though, becomes the occasion for radical hospitality in the way of Jesus.

When Jesus met the man of the Gerasenes, it was not a holiday, and it was not a costume. The man had been possessed by an evil spirit. He was frightening and a grave threat to both himself and others. When he approached Jesus, Jesus didn’t dismiss the man or go in the other direction.  No, Jesus met him where he was and offered him unexpected grace and love, and the unclean spirit came out of the man. This was a pattern with Jesus. He met people at their worst and raised them to health and wholeness. 

When I reflect on this story and on Halloween, there is a correlation. One of the reasons we give candy on Halloween is we know that beneath even the scariest costume, there is a human being, someone made in the image and likeness of God. That is why we are not afraid when monsters knock on our door. Likewise, Jesus recognized that beneath the mask of brokenness and pain, people like the man of the Gerasenes, were human beings, also made in the likeness of God. That is why he could love them through and beyond their brokenness.  

The council member’s devotion was spot on.  When we stop to think about it, Halloween really is a model for faithful discipleship in the way of Jesus. Fear, cruelty, creepiness, hopes, dreams, all of it is met with grace. Even with the brokenness of those wearing the costumes of everyday life, beneath it all there is a child of God, a person made in God’s likeness. 

So, to pirate a phrase from Tiny Tim (A Christmas Carol), may we honor Halloween in our hearts and try to keep it all the year! For it can show us the path of true discipleship in the name of Jesus. 

Together we are the hands and feet of Christ,

Brett