Halloween: Calling Things Up From the Dead

In "Calling Things Up From The Dead," Joshua preaches from 1 Samuel 28:3-25 and Psalm 130, recovering Halloween as All Hallows' (meaning souls') Eve, the vigil before a three-day church festival to remember the saints. Saul, deaf to the Lord after a long pattern of grasping control, turns to the medium at Endor to call Samuel up from the grave, and the sermon asks where we do the same, returning to dead identities, voices, and comforts for guidance instead of hearing God for ourselves. The answer is not holy avoidance but holy awareness: because Christ has overcome death, the church can mock skeletons and ghosts rather than fear them, and remember the faithful departed as part of a story larger than our own. Let the dead things sleep, the sermon urges, and live forward in Christ, who is Resurrection and Life.