Another Reason to Celebrate

Last April I wrote about Thailand's Songkran holiday and how it rather inconveniently coincided with the Christian Easter holiday. Here in the U.S., this past Saturday brought about another unusual collision of holiday cultures: Halloween and Reformation Day.

The Halloween decorations started going up around the neighborhood a few weeks ago. Maybe two years away from the holiday caused me to be caught off-guard and a bit stunned by the gory and gruesome displays of "festiveness," or maybe I just have some especially graphic neighbors living down the street. The holiday's fascination of witchcraft, the living dead, and demons does not gel with what I constitute as "whatever is true... noble... pure... lovely... admirable... excellent or praiseworthy," so I'd just as soon not dwell on those things.

There is something I appreciate and enjoy about Halloween, though, and it's the concept that one can be transformed into someone or something different. What a unique little cultural expedition our October 31st brings each year, as costume-clad children take a basket around their neighborhood and receive treats in return! It sounds just as unique to me as Thai people celebrating New Year in April by having a three-day long water throwing festival in the city streets.

The theme of transformation is also central to the day's other holiday, Reformation. To celebrate this holiday, my international students have been working through a unit on the life of Martin Luther and to what the word "Lutheran" refers. Also, on Sunday I had the pleasure of attending and singing in a special district-wide Reformation service attended by hundreds of other Christians. I'm thankful for this time of year as a reminder of the imperfections of the church on earth, both in the past and in the present, and how that just brings us more acutely aware of this world's need for a Savior, found in the God-man Jesus Christ. I’m thankful that God’s Word is truly our great heritage, and shall be ours forever. And the more we’re in the Word, the more it transforms us.

That's a transformation that cannot be held to a once per year celebration. It's a transformation to celebrate each morning as we wake up and ask God to give us the strength to live lives worthy of His calling.

Happy Transformation Day!