A Drop in the Cup: Why Halloween Can’t Be Sanitized

A cup of crystal-clear, cold water is set before you on a steaming hot day. It’s sweating from the heat, and you’re eager for a cool, refreshing drink. You reach out in thirsty anticipation, your mouth watering.

But before you can grab it, a tiny, almost-imperceptible drop of cyanide is added to the glass.

Still want that drink?

A single drop can be fatal. Knowing there’s poison in the glass, is it worth the risk? Do you want this tainted water that’s now potentially harmful?

God’s first act of creation in Genesis 1 was to bring the world out of darkness and into light. This foreshadowed his intent for humanity. He has no interest in seeing those He has made in His image (verse 26) imitate or participate in any sort of darkness, no matter how it’s packaged. Ephesians 5:3 goes so far to say, “Let it not even be named among you.”

Accepting a trace of darkness would be like sipping from the cyanide-laced cup—a deadly decision.

This is what it’s like when professing Christians participate in pagan-derived festivals like Halloween, a celebration of darkness, evil and everything God stands so firmly against.  

As the jack-o-lanterns come out and candy is stocked to welcome trick-or-treaters, and kids and adults alike hunt for the perfect costume to celebrate in, let’s consider whether Halloween cloaks us in darkness or light. Does it keep our cups clean or make them unclean?

An unclean cup

Halloween is one of those holidays that doesn’t mask what it’s all about, even if observers wear masks in celebration of it. It’s an outright celebration of witchcraft, the occult and the evil spirit realm, all of which are condemned in Scripture.

Deuteronomy 18:10-12 warns: “There shall not be found among you . . . one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spirits, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.”  

God is clear: Don’t mess with these things; they make our cups unclean. Verse 13 tells us what we should instead seek to be: “You shall be blameless before the Lord your God.” In other words, you should be a clean, pure glass of water, free from any and all drops of deadly sin.

Involving ourselves with these things that Halloween celebrates is like opening our mouths and allowing in a drop of cyanide.  

It can seem harmless to participate in the customs of this day because they appear to be innocent enough, especially if we try to pretty them up.  

What would be so wrong with maybe just going to a trunk-or-treat event hosted at a church where no one wears the “evil” types of costumes? It’s still celebrating and fitting in with everyone else while avoiding the less desirable elements. What could be wrong with that?

But putting a pretty umbrella in a cup of water with cyanide still leaves a cup of poisoned water. It’s just dressed up to deceive you into taking a deadly sip.

God does not call people to continue in this kind of uncleanness but to become clean (1 Thessalonians 4:7), purified from the poison of sin. That comes only through the blood of the Savior Jesus Christ upon repentance (Hebrews 9:14).

In fact, we aren’t even supposed to touch what is unclean—sin—as it separates us from God and leads to death (2 Corinthians 6:17; Isaiah 59:2; Romans 6:23). That is the real poison in the cup. That is the danger of dipping our toes into Halloween celebrations.

The cup worth choosing

This is not an Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade scenario, where immediate death follows a single poor choice. No, God overflows in mercy and is longsuffering toward us, desiring all to live and come to repentance (Psalm 86:15; 2 Peter 3:9).

He offers us the water that has been untouched by poison—pure, clean, living water that leads to eternal life, saving us from the penalty of sin, death.

As Jesus stated: “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14).

God has given us a choice between life and death, between blessing and cursing. He is urging us to choose the cup of life, but He won’t force us (see Deuteronomy 30:19).  

We’re further warned that we cannot take from God’s cup and simultaneously sip from the cup of evil traditions: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons” (1 Corinthians 10:21). The two just don’t mix. And we shouldn’t embrace any attempt to mix them together. Putting a pretty bow on Halloween celebrations doesn’t change what they are. Accepting them is still a sip from the wrong cup.  

Knowing what’s in that poisoned cup, this Halloween season will you still take a drink?