Tuesday, October 28, 2008

One Who Glories In The Death Of Men


I was sitting with my husband last night out on our small front lawn. We go out there and sit when the kids want to play out front so that we have an eye on them. As I waited for him to bring out the decaf and join me, I stared at my neighbors decorations for Halloween. She had two headstones in her grass and a skeleton hanging by it's neck. The following is what processed through my brain at the time.

How delighted the enemy must be this time of year when man find entertainment in the subject of death. The one thing that the devil himself longs for for every man not knowing the salvation of the work of Christ. Once a man is dead, there is no second try, the enemy knows he has him. It is in his nature to delight and find glory in the death of humanity. To think that we give him this satisfaction is sobering to me.
I think about Jesus words: "I came that they might have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." My precious savior came for everything working against death. Humans are his precious creation he finds worthy of shedding his own blood for. How he must grieve when we decorate our lives with the theme of death.
To mock and jest at the subject of death seems to me a slap in the face of the creator who the devil all ready despises. Our flesh and bones are of no value to him but to be symbols of his triumph in the way or our eternal destinations. To our savior, our flesh and bones are reflections of the image of the Heavenly Father who we were created after.
Any man may mock his own death, but he won't be mocking on the day he dies. He will be filled with fear and he will tremble. How is it that we taunt it without realization? To think that we join the enemy in laughter and jesting about the very triumph he has accomplished by putting death upon us. Our greatest problem of separation from God (spiritual death) and bodily death, are because of him and because of them we are cursed. Yet, we jest with Him at our very bondage.
If only we knew what we were really doing. We would tremble now as well.
I speak in "we" but of course I have trusted in the saving power of Jesus Christ and have been reconciled to God (spiritually alive) and will one day be in a body that will no longer be under the power of death. Yet, I hurt for the mind of men who are not yet reconciled and know not what they jest and entertain themselves with. It is essentially their own demise with which they amuse themselves, and the devil laughs. He is the one who glories in the death of men. I will not join him, ever.
I shared this with my daughter on the way to school as we walked by skeleton heads that she thought were cool because they light up. "Anything that lights up is cool" I said. "But I will never cease to be disturbed by the glorification of death". She seemed to understand. It was a moment to share what was put on my heart the night before and I wanted to seize it.


4 comments:

Claire said...

I so agree, Alicia. We quit "celebrating" Halloween a few years ago. We now host an anti-Halloween party for the kids and their friends. They have a much better time than they ever did trick-or-treating!

Alicia said...

Claire,
We have let our kids trick-or-treat when there is no harvest function to go to especially. My husband does not let them say "trick-or-treat" (because of the meaning of the phrase that we would play a trick on you if you don't give us candy... beyond the implication of spells, it's just rude demanding of a child for something they want), but "happy halloween" (which I don't enjoy either because I don't really know what the heck that would mean...but there is not much else thats polite and plesant)instead. They enjoy the dressing up and the candy and that is what we do it for. We don't allow scary themes and we don't do any halloween decorations since most of them are death oriented. We use to not even do jack-o-lanterns but now we do with happy faces.
Rick and I both grew up not doing halloween at all. I particularly was in a family that would stay home and turn off all the lights to make people think we were not home. Of course I wished I could dress up and have candy like the other kids but we also did not do ANY sugar in my house. So, we have wanted to make sure to make some memeories for our family. We feel that is the important thing, building family memories.

Karen said...

I completely agree with the family memories, Alicia! I blogged the other day about Halloween and having to buy the kids their costumes this year. When we were shopping it was particularly hard to find something for Trev. Josh was looking and said, "how come all the boy costumes are evil??" We settled on a Star Wars guy with NO GUN. I can't wait to be settled next year and I can SEW positive, fun costumes again!

And as for "trick or treat" I agree with that too. I've liked around our new neighborhood that several of the churches are advertising "trunk or treats" in their parking lots...no insinuation of a trick and a nice, safe, positive place to go with the kids.

Tricia said...

i have never enjoyed halloween, even as a child. we take the kids to a local harvest function. i want the kids to have fun memories not be scared for years. my oldest does not want to even do that any more.