The chilly late October air blows through your jacket as you walk down the dark sidewalk with your children. You shiver involuntarily. Could it be more than just the temperature doing this? As you look around you, while reenacting this pagan ritual of “trick or treat”, there are decorations of dead, decomposing things—evil things covering yards, hanging in windows. People walking around wearing costumes of that which we fear most. Skeletons, witches, zombies. All that represents death. What kind of a crazy celebration is this anyway?
Until recently, I have really, really hated Halloween. I found it to be grotesque and appalling with the images of death everywhere. Essentially, Halloween is a celebration of death. Why in heck to we want to celebrate something we all fear? Death, after all is the very black hole which sucks in joy, hope, peace and loved ones. Death is about loss and the hurt which comes from it. Do we celebrate death simply in an attempt to acknowledge our fears and bravely stand against them, or perhaps, maybe, could it be that there is some redeeming quality to death that is worth celebrating?
When I was 18 years old, I dated a girl for a while and I was quite serious about her. I fully intended on marrying her. I was convinced that she was “the one” and could not imagine life without her. Seven months after we started dating, it ended. It was a death. The realization of a fear I had. The fear of losing her. The death of a relationship, and I was heartbroken. I did not celebrate this, after all what good could possibly come of this? I mourned deeply. Almost two years later I met the woman who would become my wife of almost 23 years so far. I realized later on that this former girlfriend and I, for many reasons, would not have been a good match in the long run. There had to be a death. There was something so much better out there which I could not experience without that death. Though it was unpleasant at the time, the death of that relationship was ultimately something to be celebrated.
How many times have you experienced a death which led to something better? Maybe a job, a relationship, a lifestyle. We tend to get attached to what we have, even if it is not the best thing for us. After all—it’s comfortable, it’s familiar. The only way we can let go is through death.
Adam and Eve in the garden, before sin did not experience death. There was no need for it as everything was as it should be. One concept of what sin is that I particularly like is from Dr. Steve McVey. He says that sin is something which is less than what Gods best is for us. Adam and Eve after the fall existed in a system of their own making. A system which was less than what God’s best was for them and in their minds they were separated from God. God did not want them to live like that forever as He had something so much better in store for them. And so death came into the world. Yes, it seems like a curse, but when you live in a system of “less than God’s best for you”, no matter how attached to it we become, in order to enjoy God’s best for us there has to be a death.
There also has to be a death of false self (ego). Because of this system of sin which we all live in, we see ourselves wrongly and because of this, we behave wrongly. This is what keeps the system of sin alive. At best, we identify ourselves by what we do, or where we live, or perhaps our status in society. At worst, we see ourselves as depraved sinners, failures, unable to do anything good or right.
Both of these views are unhealthy as they are ego driven perceptions. Neither reflect our true self. When God created mankind He called us good. That hasn’t changed. A $100 bill is still worth $100 if it is crisp and new or if it is crumpled up lying in a mud puddle. Its value does not change! The reality is, that we are loved and accepted by God no matter how we act. We are not so powerful that we can change how God feels about us. Our false ego needs to die before we can embrace the reality of who we really are. Its a humbling experience as we like to think we can do things that make us great which we can be proud of. We like to think that we are capable of earning God’s love somehow.
I love what Robert Farrah Capon writes in “Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace”:
“Lord, please restore to us the comfort of merit and demerit. Show us that there is at least something we can do. Tell us that at the end of the day there will at least be one redeeming card of our very own. Lord, if it is not too much to ask, send us to bed with a few shreds of self-respect upon which we can congratulate ourselves. But whatever you do, do not preach grace. Give us something to do, anything; but spare us the indignity of this indiscriminate acceptance.”
Somehow sin also had a tangibly destructive effect on physical reality. As I get older I become more and more aware of this as the list of aches and pains in my body gets longer and longer. This is certainly less than God’s best for us. There has to be a physical death in order for us to enjoy something better which God has for us. I do not know what the metaphysical realm will be like, but I know that it will be a reality of healing and wholeness. I do believe that the physical realm will one day be restored and joined to the metaphysical and this gives me hope. It gives me reason to celebrate death. For death is simply the corridor we have been given to shed that which is not best for us so that we can enjoy what truly is Gods best!
One day, there will not be any more death, for in that day death will have outlived its usefulness. On that day all will be restored to perfect relationship with God, and where there is nothing better to have, there is no more need for death. That is a celebration I look forward to!
John 12:24-25 NASBS
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.