Many Christian families and churches dread the end of October as the days draw closer to Halloween.
I spent a good deal of time in Halloween blog post advocating for Christians to reclaim Halloween as Christian celebration. For those of you who follow a lectionary or liturgical calendar, November 4th is All Saints Sunday. I’m sure that there are Christians trying to make sense of these events for churches. Seeing Halloween through All Saint’s Day, Christians can remember loved ones and thank God for those who labored as saints of Christianity. There are a number of churches that hold fall festivals, trick or trunk events, or other safe trick or treat events.
Instead of drawing attention to Halloween as our culture does, through scary movies, gory displays, and haunted hay rides, we are going to spend some time honoring our loved ones who passed away on this All Saints Sunday. We will have a special time of remembrance for our personal ‘saints’ who have passed away. We did this last year in worship and it provided a very meaningful time of reflection.
Historically, All Saints Day was a way for Christians to remember martyrs and saints. Most protestants are uneasy with using the word “saint” because of Catholic theology and veneration of saints. The New Testament mentions ‘saint’ over 60 times. This Sunday, we will be talking about ‘cheeky saints.’ What is a cheeky saint?
