‘Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’ John 8:12
As promised, we are turning back to the Lord ‘s Prayer however I need to revisit ‘Hallowed be thy name’.
While I was organising a Halloween outreach event in my garden I thought about the link between Hallowed be thy name and the event of Halloween. Why is the same ‘holy’ name mentioned in both. These seem like polar opposites that should never meet particularly on the 31st October so is there a link?
Is Halloween in opposition of God as a rejection of his holiness and an embracing of all that is evil? I’m sure many of us believe this to be true. I certainly though this for many years.
Last time we considered how God is to be hallowed, to be worshipped as Creator God. However, we need to consider how this truth of God shines into the truth of who we are particularly as our role as worshipper. Worshippers of our Creator God. For some of us to be regarded as a worshipper feels offensive. However whether we agree to worship God what we need to understand is we are naturally a worshipper whether we like it or not. The bible tells us we either worship God or his creation.
The truth is as created beings we must be less than the one who created us, this must at the very least be what we understand by ‘Hallowed be thy name’.
Strangely this isn’t really how we naturally think, how often have you caught yourself thinking ‘when I get to heaven, I’ll tell God what I really think’ or ‘I’ll put God straight one of these days.’
For many of us created things have so much more clarity, they are not only more visible, but they take much less effort to understand. That’s because we are created too. What is visible makes so much more sense and is much more available particularly if you have a disposable income to spend on whatever you want.
This is one of the many differences to living for the kingdom of self or living within the kingdom of God.
God is invisible to the naked eye, so we often readily ignore his presence or worse still try a disprove his existence, which enables us to make the assumption that all our wealth and treasures are earned by our own hard work rather than gifted to us from God himself.
If visibility is evidence of all that we are we have to admit that there are many things essential to life that are invisible to us these include air, wind, breath, laws of science and maths to name a few. As with all things invisible there is physical evidence to prove its existence. So just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it is less important, or we are unable to be aware of it.
The apostle John tells us in chapter 20 s 28 and 29 ‘Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
This is the difference between spiritual blindness and spiritual sight, the place of a faith that gives us hope for a certain future. It is this lens of Christ that we all need to see life through to make sense of who God the Father is. That to Hallow the name of God is not only about respect and honour but recognise he is Holy, and we are not.
We are a different not just because we are created but because we are unholy, we are incapable of being in the presence of God without our sinfulness being destroyed by God’s pure holiness.
It is Christ himself that provides the bridge from unholiness (darkness) to holiness (light).
The meaning of hallow is ‘greatly revered and honoured’ or ‘one who is holy’. Hallowed means bring honour and respect to the one who is to be greatly revered and honoured because of his holiness.
In Jesus we receive His holiness not so that we are worshipped but so we as worshippers are able to fully worship our Creator, our Father in heaven without the restriction and terror that the sin within has signed our death warrant.
And this is where we see the link with Halloween, it was never meant to be a celebration of all things evil. The meaning of ween is ‘to hold the opinion’ of hallow ‘holiness’ in other words to be holy minded.
Halloween was originally a Christian event the eve before All Hallows Day the day to celebrate holiness. On Halloween the Christian children would dress up in ghoul outfits to show how they weren’t scared of evil because they knew Jesus had overcome it and destroyed even death itself. As Christians they (and we) have nothing to fear from evil as it is destined to destruction.
Maybe next Halloween if you are a Christian pray about how to meet your neighbours with the great news of Jesus or if you’re not a Christian you could consider understanding who Jesus is and why he died on the cross to bring you from darkness into His marvellous light.
This is what I did this Halloween
Living His Word 