google stockphoto scared movie audience 1508 98022-612x61
October is the month for monsters, especially here in the
Salem area of Massachusetts. All Hallows Eve is big business: the scarier the
better with perennial familiars, the Witch Museum, the Psychic Faire and
Witches Market, the Haunted Happenings (proudly promoted as “the largest
celebration of Halloween in the world”[1]).
Salem has featured everybody in any way related to Casper and Wendy,[2]
from noted author Mary Victoria Price, Vincent Price’s daughter, to Elvira, the
well-endowed creation of actress Cassandra Peterson. Horror film crews have
made Salem their Mecca. For circa $30 each, anyone can have their wits,
dickens, and living daylights all scared out by taking one or more of Salem’s multitudinous
walking tours, featuring “History and Haunting,” “Witch Trials,” “Mysteries and
Murders,” “Spook Specters,” “Explore Canada” (Wait! That one was a pop-up…I think…),
a number of Ghost tours, including the “Dead of Night Ghost Tour” (for this one
and the “Curses and Crimes Candlelight” tour, make sure to pack an extra candle
in case the first one snuffs out…), for the eclectic, there is also a ghost
tour featuring “Voodoo and Vampires” (not really native to Salem, but who
cares?), the “Self-Guided Smartphone Ghost Walking Tour” (Are you really alone?
Or is ATNTrouble or Verizoooon haunting your steps?), the“Satanic Tour” by
Salem’s Satanic Temple, with its documentary “Hail Satan?” (Question mark,
indeed!), and local favorites, “Bewitched” (you remember the TV show? No? Oh…),
“Witch Trials,” and “Witchcraft Hysteria” tours, and on and beyond.[3]
And, of course, the most terrifying of all for locals throughout the entire
month: trying to find a place to park in town, since Salem “is excited to
welcome more than a half-million visitors to the parties, parades, vendor
fairs, walking tours, museums, attractions, and special events.” [4] (Salem’s normal off-season population is 43,450, so do the
parking math before you drive in...)
For those who don’t want to shell out $30, Massachusetts
provides free of charge a terrifying gubernatorial election, where the major
political parties are offering to replace our present excellent governor
Charlie Baker with a Democratic candidate who summarizes
her campaign thusly, “‘The choice in this election couldn’t be more clear,’[5] Healey told Boston.com recently. ‘The Healey-Driscoll Administration will be focused on
delivering results and will always protect abortion access and personal
freedom.’” That’s it? That’s the central focus and concern? Promote abortion and promise to
deliver? Hardly an encouraging choice for pro-life
Massachusetts voters.
“On the Republican side,
Geoff Diehl, a former state lawmaker and Donald Trump booster, said Thursday he
believed a return to required mask wearing, particularly for children, would ‘disrupt
their much-needed return to normal living and education practices. The people
of Massachusetts are smart and capable of making their own health decisions for
themselves and for their families, including whether to get vaccinated [![6]] or
to voluntarily wear a mask. There is no need for government to keep interfering
in our lives. Enough is enough,’ Diehl said… ‘Any further mandates will harm
families [How is that?] and, at this point, we can’t afford that in this state.
We will also put unnecessary impediments on small businesses which are only now
getting back on their feet from the devastation of the last year [This must be
a misquote!],’ Diehl said.” At the same time, “The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention on Tuesday revised its masking guidance to advise that everyone —
including those who are fully vaccinated — resume wearing masks in indoor
public spaces in areas where the Delta variant is fueling ‘high’ or ‘substantial’
COVID-19 transmission.”[7]
As
of October 27, 2022, the current daily report of new Massachusetts Covid cases is
1,202, according to the New York Times.[8] The
Massachusetts Government on its Covid Interactive Data Dashboard, which updates
once a week, also reports: “There were 7,408 new, confirmed cases reported in
the last seven days, bringing the total to 1,902,403 total confirmed cases.”[9] Since
the town of Hamilton, where we live just north of Salem and where we have a Gordon-Conwell
campus, boasts c.7,764 residents, this means that every week the rough equivalent
of our entire town comes down with Covid. Currently, I see hardly anyone
wearing a mask (and last week a store owner was suspicious of me wearing a
mask, figuring I must be up to no good, trying to keep my identity hidden), I
don’t think this candidate has any idea how dumb approximately 8,000 of our
citizens can be each week (and these are only the serious cases that are
reported – everybody else contracting Covid here these days just stays home for
5 days and then goes out freely inflicting themselves on the unsuspecting
public[10]).
And
what I’ve just presented are only two examples in our small state of the real
“monsters” most of us face – in this case, unsuitable leaders and at-risk
health conditions. There are a lot of issues to be terrified about in real life,
especially for those who live incautiously. Put the imagined and the real
together and it’s easy to live terrified all the time.
But
that’s not how God created us to live. Providentially, Jesus provides an
assurance that God cares about our fears and our circumstances. John, Jesus’s
disciple, in what is called his first letter, 1 John 4:18, tells us literally that
“fear is not within love, but perfect love throws out fear.” What does he mean?
John has just told us earlier that the Triune God, the One and only living God,
truly loves us and has sent Jesus to deal with our problem of fear and its
causes. God the Father, John tells us four verses previously, has sent this other
person of the Triune Godhead to become God’s incarnated Son on earth in order
to be the Savior of our world.
God
is greater than anyone in the world. With God’s help and our precautions, we
can withstand the real reasons for fear in our lives. We certainly need a
Savior, because, as Jesus warned us all, we often violate God’s commands and
deserve punishment. The real danger, he told us, is incurring God’s punishment.
As Jesus put it, literally, fear “the One being able also soul and body to
destroy in Gehenna [hell]” (Matt. 10:28). This is not God’s preference or
desire for us. God wants us to accept Jesus as God’s providential gift to us.
When we make Jesus the ruler of our life, we are invited into a relationship with
God. In that relationship we are forgiven of what we have done wrong and can
live obeying God’s commands, relying on the astonishing, omnipotent love that
God has for us. God is the primal Source of love. While much still exists in
this fallen world to fear, now we are connected to the greatest Resource of
all, the omnipotent power in the universe, which is far stronger than anything or
anyone we fear. God’s perfect love is greater than the sources of our fear.
When
we enter into a relationship with God through the Savior Jesus, we need no
longer recoil in terror of God’s punishing us or of the growling of the worldly
monsters of fear who rise up before us. Forgiven by God, we now have the favor
of a dragon-slayer stronger and more effective than any of the monsters that
cause fear. Our greatest protection of all is the forgiving love of God, which
nothing can defeat. We can face any terror face on, because God’s perfect love puts
fear into perspective and helps us conquer each fear we encounter.
Bill
[1]
https://www.hauntedhappenings.org/
[2]
For those born after the mid-1900s, Casper the Friendly Ghost and Wendy the
Good Little Witch were Harvey Comics celebrities.
[3]
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Products-g60954-a_contentId.40085738547+714267041-Salem_Massachusetts.html
[5]
https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2022/10/26/final-questions-maura-healey-democratic-candidate-ma-governor/
[6] As
it is, hardly anybody obeys mask mandates, without taking away protection as we
enter flu and virus season. See my blog, “Would Luke, the Beloved Physician,
Give and Take Covid Shots?:
https://aandwspencer.blogspot.com/2021/09/would-luke-beloved-physician-take-and.html#comment-form
[7]
https://www.gloucestertimes.com/news/local_news/diehl-leave-decisions-on-wearing-mask-to-individuals/article_9930452c-46b8-57b8-a3c2-
[8]
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/massachusetts-covid-cases.html
[9]
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-response-reporting#covid-19-interactive-data-dashboard-
