History Lesson of the Day

Today the world will celebrate Halloween, but 501 years ago, on Oct. 31, a huge victory was won against the kingdom of darkness and no one seems to know about it or even talk about it in Christian circles.  Martin Luther wrote and nailed the theses against the corrupt church on the very same day that the world celebrates Halloween.  I find it an amazing coincidence.

A few moms and I were together yesterday and we were talking about how we would "celebrate" today.  It was amazing to hear the different ways each family would spend the evening.  One was going to go on an outreach with her family and hand out tracts to people in the neighbourhood.  That is not typical!  Another mom was going to do a Reformation Day Party!  How fun!  They were going to play the cutest games, "Pin the 95 Theses on the Door"!  They were going to use fake gold for "indulgences" and then watch a cute video on Martin Luther.  I ended up looking for the video myself and found all sorts of amazing videos that people have made to explain the Reformation to children.  By the end of the short videos, my children were all able to explain who Martin Luther was, what the 95 theses were, where he nailed them, why he did it, the Diet of Worms (the trial location), what a Protestant is, what a Catholic is.....I was amazed and so impressed with their quick retention!

We live too far away to get trick or treaters anyway and in the past we've hosted a soup night with our friends, but this year my husband is working so we'll just be home on our own I think.  The kids don't seem to know what everyone else is doing in town.  Just as well, we have enough cavities!

When I looked up the roots of Halloween, it was pretty dark.  People dressed up as dark spirits in order to disguise themselves from the the lord of death.  When kids dress up today as princesses and knights, they don't know why they are doing it, and probably the parents are unaware as well.  But some are very aware as you see so many houses decorated in the macabre - black bats, zombies, skeletons, bloody cemetery scenes.  That's what ultimately made us change our minds years ago.  We had been doing the whole Halloween thing for years and I had no problem with it.  But for every cute princess that came along, there were half a dozen creepy costumes and houses that we didn't dare take our kids to or open our doors.  We took a look at the whole process and as much as our kids loved the candy, we just couldn't get our heads around the darkness of the event.  I wish I'd been bolder at the time and started witnessing to my neighbours about Christ at every door and every opportunity, but instead we just chose not to participate and instead we turned it into a chance to connect with fellow believers.  I think now as our kids are getting older we could consider the outreach aspect.  I love that our church pursues that as an alternative.

There's my history lesson for the day!