A quote from my earlier post today: "Ultimately, Christian participation in Halloween is a matter of conscience before God. Whatever level of Halloween participation you choose, you must honor God by keeping yourself separate from the world and by showing mercy to those who are perishing".
Well, I think we've accomplished the separate issue, but what about the mercy part? Mercy in the sense that we don't judge those who participate. But what about being more proactive? Is there a way to accomplish that while still being separate and not celebrating? This will be an issue that Darren and I discuss for next year's "reformation day".
What I loved about today, was the fact that we weren't just doing an "alternative" to halloween, but that October 31, 1517 is thought to be THE DAY Luther nailed the theses to the door, which really IS something to celebrate.
And as always we put up the tree. This year we will be doing Christmas much different then we have in the past, scaling back on decorations, not sure how or if we are handling gifts. We really want the boys to not just "know" but really UNDERSTAND what Christmas is about. It's our opinion that even in the majority of Christian homes Christmas has become all too comercialised. It's about decorations, food and gifts, santa clause, flying reindeer and magical talking snowmen. It's about red, white and green, candy canes, milk and cookies and stockings on the fireplace. It has very little to do with God sending His Son Jesus Christ, born of a virigin, taking human form for the express purpose of dying on a cross for the salvation of those who repent and believe on Him.
So tonight, as we put up the tree (as has been our tradition for the last 8 years) we discarded things that were distracting, such as the stockings, and the entire Rudolph the red nose reindeer cast... And as the tree went up we tried to incorporate Scripture so that the message of Christ was reinforced through the tree.
Here's how we did it:
The tree serves as a reminder of the Cross, the reason Jesus was born.
The lights serve as a reminder of the "heavenly hosts" or angels that appeared to the shepherds the night Jesus was born.
The star of course reminds us of the wise men who traveled to worship the Christ child as they were directed by God through following the star.
Here are some pictures from our day.
Aidan with the 95 theses
"nailing the theses to the door"
Getting the tree put together. Lots of discussion about the Cross and the purpose of Jesus' birth.
Sweet moment with my baby boy
"What is a cross made out of?" "Wood" "Where does wood come from?" "Trees" "So everytime we look at the tree we should be thinking about the Cross."
Reading to the boys about the "heavenly hosts" (or angels) that appeared to the sheperds in the fields the night Jesus was born.
The lights should remind us of the angels praising God for sending a Savior!
Pluging in the lights.
Frosting the brownies
Star to remind us of God guiding the wise men to worship the Christ child.
Another sweet moment with my baby boy
Adding ornaments - we used the ornaments to symbolize how each year God adds members to the body of Christ, the church (works well as each year the boys get a new ornament, so each year the tree becomes fuller).
Aidan and Asher adding their new ornaments
The boys putting V's new ornament on the tree. Aidan stopped and said a prayer that next year V will be home to put on his own ornament.
Fun shot of the boys
Enjoying our brownies and ice cream =)
And that was our 2009 celebration of Reformation day!
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