Light Up the Night!
29/10/25 10:22
Every year on October 31st at Calvary Free Lutheran Church we celebrate an event we call "Light Up the Night." The devil thinks this night is his; we're taking it back in the name of Jesus!
It's not exactly a Halloween party, if that's what you're thinking, at least not the way the world celebrates Halloween.
In the early days of the Christian Church it was customary to honor the memory of martyrs on the anniversary of their death. After a while there were so many who had been killed for their faith in Christ that there were more martyrs' days than days in the year, so they picked one day to remember them all, calling it All Saints' Day.
Then some asked, "What about Grandpa? He died and went to heaven but wasn't a martyr. He died a natural death!" So they continued the celebration the next day and called it All Souls' Day. So now we had a two day celebration that began the evening of October 31st and ended the evening of November 2nd, called "All Saints' Tide."
In the Eastern Church, All Saints' Day is celebrated during Lent or during Holy Week. But in Western Europe the Pagans had a day when they remembered the dead (the Day of the Dead) but it was a fearful, terrifying day. The people believed that on that day their dead ancestors could come back and haunt them, so they would put little offerings of food or other items on the graves of dead relatives, hoping to appease these ghosts, in case they were angry, so they would leave them alone. (Trick or treat!) The Christians chose the day to celebrate the joyful, victorious home-going of the Saints, highlighting the contrast between the Pagan view of death and the glorious view of death and eternal life that the Bible teaches and Christians believe.
Hallowe'en is short for "All Hallow's Evening." Hallow was the Old Saxon word for "Holy" or "Saint," so All Hallows simply meant All Saints. All Saints' Day is celebrated on November 1st, the day that the Western branch of the Christian Church commemorates the lives of those saints who have gotten to heaven ahead of us. We honor their memory and are inspired by their example of faithfulness to the Lord Jesus. In ancient times each day was considered to begin at sundown (evening) of the day before, so the celebration of All Saints' Day began the evening of October 31st, All Hallows' Eve.
So that same contrast is still going on to this day. The Pagan world focuses on ghosts, goblins, witches and ghouls. We celebrate the glorious hope of eternal life, because Jesus died and rose again for us!
And then, on October 31st, 1531, a German Saxon priest named Martin Luther chose that day to post his "95 Theses" on the door of his parish church in Wittenberg, inviting people to debate a list of abuses and false teachings that he saw had crept into the Church, and calling them to return to the authority of God's Word alone. That night, the great "Reformation" and spiritual renewal of the Christian Church began. That gives us another reason to celebrate: Reformation Day!
So we have plenty to celebrate this week. Jesus is Lord!
It's not exactly a Halloween party, if that's what you're thinking, at least not the way the world celebrates Halloween.
In the early days of the Christian Church it was customary to honor the memory of martyrs on the anniversary of their death. After a while there were so many who had been killed for their faith in Christ that there were more martyrs' days than days in the year, so they picked one day to remember them all, calling it All Saints' Day.
Then some asked, "What about Grandpa? He died and went to heaven but wasn't a martyr. He died a natural death!" So they continued the celebration the next day and called it All Souls' Day. So now we had a two day celebration that began the evening of October 31st and ended the evening of November 2nd, called "All Saints' Tide."
In the Eastern Church, All Saints' Day is celebrated during Lent or during Holy Week. But in Western Europe the Pagans had a day when they remembered the dead (the Day of the Dead) but it was a fearful, terrifying day. The people believed that on that day their dead ancestors could come back and haunt them, so they would put little offerings of food or other items on the graves of dead relatives, hoping to appease these ghosts, in case they were angry, so they would leave them alone. (Trick or treat!) The Christians chose the day to celebrate the joyful, victorious home-going of the Saints, highlighting the contrast between the Pagan view of death and the glorious view of death and eternal life that the Bible teaches and Christians believe.
Hallowe'en is short for "All Hallow's Evening." Hallow was the Old Saxon word for "Holy" or "Saint," so All Hallows simply meant All Saints. All Saints' Day is celebrated on November 1st, the day that the Western branch of the Christian Church commemorates the lives of those saints who have gotten to heaven ahead of us. We honor their memory and are inspired by their example of faithfulness to the Lord Jesus. In ancient times each day was considered to begin at sundown (evening) of the day before, so the celebration of All Saints' Day began the evening of October 31st, All Hallows' Eve.
So that same contrast is still going on to this day. The Pagan world focuses on ghosts, goblins, witches and ghouls. We celebrate the glorious hope of eternal life, because Jesus died and rose again for us!
And then, on October 31st, 1531, a German Saxon priest named Martin Luther chose that day to post his "95 Theses" on the door of his parish church in Wittenberg, inviting people to debate a list of abuses and false teachings that he saw had crept into the Church, and calling them to return to the authority of God's Word alone. That night, the great "Reformation" and spiritual renewal of the Christian Church began. That gives us another reason to celebrate: Reformation Day!
So we have plenty to celebrate this week. Jesus is Lord!
