OCTOBER 31, 2005

GHOULIES AND GHOSTIES
by Pastor George Van Alstine

I flipped through television channels last night and found it impossible to escape Halloween. It seemed that every movie channel was showing a series of horror films. As I pushed the remote buttons, I was introduced to Freddie and Jason and Chuckie. My psyche was attacked by zombies, vampires, and werewolves. I could not escape blood and gore, nor the screams of the terrified.

What is it with us that we are so fascinated with the dark side of the supernatural? The answer is complicated. In one sense, it’s all a game that we don’t really take seriously. The awful, threatening characters are like cartoons. Also, there is a dimension of triumphalism. In the end, the evil force is usually (but not always) defeated, and we feel a kind of relief and safety.

But it can’t be denied that there is also a strange, powerful magnetism in these eerie, uncontrolable beings and forces. We connect with them because they remind us of some eerie, uncontrolable dark corners within ourselves. These antiheroes are all too familiar to us.

There is a famous old Scottish prayer:
“From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!”

Though the words may seem quaint, or even funny, this prayer is really a good one. It doesn’t say, “Lord, help us to see that these scarey beings are not real.” Instead, it acknowledges that they may indeed be real, that they are too strong for us to deal with without God’s help, and that we need deliverance from the fear of them.

Unidentified “things go bump in the night.” In the daylight, the same “bumps” would not alarm us—somebody moved a trash can, or the boy in the next house slammed the door. But at night any sight or sound becomes more scarey.

Abraham’s most profound encounter with God came on the night after he was told to make a great sacrifice, involving the deaths of several animals (Genesis 15:9-10). After the animals’ bodies were laid out in two piles, “birds of prey came down on the carcasses,” and Abraham frantically tried to drive them away. Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock would love to describe this scene.

Abraham’s panic increased when evening approached:
“As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a terrifying darkness descended upon him.” (verse 12)
I’m sure his dreams involved some ghoulies and ghosties.

It was at the scariest moment that God appeared to Abraham and gave him words of assurance and hope, establishing an eternal covenant with him.

Ever since then, believers in the God of Abraham have discovered that the only antidote for an encounter with the dark side of the supernatural is an encounter with the light side of the supernatural, with the God of grace and glory.

Are you scared? Pray, and God will be by your side. The answer to a scare is a prayer.