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Grace isn’t fair. It’s reckless and lavish and handed out freely to those who don’t deserve a thing.
Every Halloween, our front yard transforms into a small carnival. For more than twenty years, my late wife Jill and I rented a giant inflatable bounce house, set it up on the lawn, and welcomed the entire neighborhood. We started doing this even before we had kids. Our friends thought we were crazy; who rents a bounce house for other people’s children? But that was kind of the point. It wasn’t about us; it was about giving something away.
As the years went by and our kids grew up, they invited their classmates, and the party expanded. Some years, thirty or forty people would be bouncing, laughing, and talking while Jill handed out juice boxes and I passed out candy. For the grown-ups, we offered water, maybe a beer, or a glass of wine. We didn’t take names, ask questions, or charge a dime. We just gave it all away because it felt right, like a glimpse of grace in a world that doesn’t give much for free.
On no other night do we open our doors to complete strangers, delight in their disguises, and give them gifts they haven’t earned.
I understand what some say about Halloween. It has pagan roots, and can lend itself to a fascination with the darker side: with death, demons, and fear. That’s true enough. But if you step back, you might see that this night has become, in its own odd way, one of the most grace-filled evenings on the American calendar.
Think about it. On no other night do we open our doors to complete strangers, delight in their disguises, and give them gifts they haven’t earned. There’s no transaction, no exchange rate of good behavior for candy. Kids don’t need to say a prayer or sign a pledge. They just ring the doorbell, shout “Trick or treat,” and are showered with sweetness.
That’s grace, pure, unearned, undeserved.
Of course, the night also reveals the truth about us. We hide. Every one of us wears a mask, not just on October 31. We conceal our shame, guilt, and insecurity. We pretend to be stronger, braver, or more put-together than we really are. This is what sin does: it pushes us into hiding.
Our masks aren’t just signs of embarrassment; they’re declarations of independence from God.
The first time this happened was in the garden, when Adam and Eve realized what they had done and tried to cover themselves. Since then, we’ve been doing the same thing with different materials: paper masks, polite smiles, curated lives. We want to look good enough for God or for the people around us.
But there’s a deeper truth beneath all that pretending. Our masks aren’t just signs of embarrassment; they’re declarations of independence from God. We hide not only because we’re ashamed, but because we want to believe we’re still alive on our own.
Yet this night reminds us that the grave waits for all of us, and apart from Christ, we’re not just hiding; we’re dead. It’s not simply that we refuse rescue; it’s that we’re incapable of saving ourselves. We can dress it up, paint it over, and call it life, but apart from the Giver, we’re only the walking dead, clutching our candy and pretending it’s enough.
And so, when it comes to our idea of grace, we start rationing. We draw the curtains, click off the porch light, and lock the doors. We’d rather stay inside, safe and self-contained, than open the door to those we don’t think deserve it.
We fail to give as freely as God gives. We hoard grace as if it were running out. We measure our kindness and guard our goodness, keeping track of who’s earned what. We want to make sure people have proven themselves before they get their share. In the end, we’d rather be the ones holding the bowl, deciding who gets the candy, than the ones welcoming the masked person at the door.
It’s the same resentment that appears in Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard. The landowner pays everyone the same, regardless of how long they’ve worked, and the early laborers can’t stand it. “You’ve made them equal to us,” they protest (Matt. 20:12). In other words, they didn’t earn this.
That’s the scandal of grace. We want God’s generosity to make sense, to reward effort, to pay out fairly. But grace isn’t fair. It’s reckless and lavish and handed out freely to those who don’t deserve a thing. That’s what makes the gospel so astonishing. God doesn’t wait for us to unmask ourselves or prove we’re worthy of the gift. He flings open the door, welcomes us in, and showers us with his mercy.
The hymn “Today Your Mercy Calls Us” captures it beautifully:
“Today Your gate is open, and all who enter in
Shall find a Father’s welcome and pardon for their sin.
The past shall be forgotten, a present joy be given,
A future grace be promised, a glorious crown in heaven.” (LSB 915:2)
That’s the gospel in poetic form. The door is open. The Father welcomes. The gift is already prepared. And, as the next verse says,
“No question will be asked us, how often we have come,
Although we oft have wandered, it is our Father’s home.” (LSB 915:3)
No interrogation, no hesitation, no conditions. Just mercy, dolled out again and again.
Every Halloween, when a costumed child runs up to our porch, I think about that kind of grace. They’re covered in masks and capes and glitter, but we don’t care. We hand over the goods like it’s the most natural thing in the world. It’s not earned. It’s given.
That’s what God does for us. He sees through every disguise and gives the sweetest gift of all, his Son.
As Paul writes, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8)
That’s not a fun-size portion of mercy. That’s King-Size Grace.
In some neighborhoods, the kids whisper about the house that gives out king-size candy bars. You can see the joy on their faces when they realize they’ve come to the right place. They may have wandered into a street they’ve never visited before. They may not even live in the neighborhood. But they’re welcomed like family and handed the best gift on the block.
Spiritually, that’s every one of us. We’ve not just wandered into a neighborhood where we don’t belong; we are lost and dead in our sin. We’ve shown up uninvited. We’ve walked streets that aren’t ours, and we’ve knocked on the door of a house that should’ve stayed shut to us.
But Jesus came to our neighborhood first. The King left his own home and entered ours, wrapped not in royal robes but in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. As Paul says,
“Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6–7).
The true King became the Servant, stepping onto our dark streets so that the outcasts and wanderers could be welcomed home. At his cross, he handed out the richest gift imaginable, his own life, for those who didn’t belong, for those who had nothing to offer in return, even for those who drove the nails into his flesh. But his grace didn’t end there. The King who died is the King who rose, wrenching the mask off death itself. The Son of God left the glory of heaven to bear our shame, to walk among the dead, and to breathe life into those who could not save themselves. At the cross, he opened wide the door of mercy, and in his resurrection, he flicks the porch light on and keeps the door open forever, grace that keeps flowing, a sweetness that never sours, a promise that death itself cannot swallow.
That’s King-Size Grace, given by the King who still opens his door and fills our empty hands with his sweet gifts.
Jill loved this night. She enjoyed the people, the laughter, and the opportunity to connect in simple ways. Every year, when the bounce house is set up and the porch light clicks on, I can still see her heart in it all, a heart that welcomed others and gave freely because she knew how much she had been loved.
When the night ends, the last of trick or treaters have gone home, the bounce house deflates, and the laughter fades into quiet, I’ll stand on the porch and look down the street at the other glowing doorsteps, and I won’t be able to help but think that maybe this is what grace looks like in miniature, porch lights shining in the dark, open doors, hands giving freely, strangers made welcome, the promise that the feast will never run out, and the taste of his King-Size Grace will still linger long after the doorbell stops ringing.
