Dracula Hates Lent

If Dracula has taught us anything it is that the life of the anti-Christ is a desperate one. For while it is obvious that this famous character hailing from Transylvania does not call Jesus Lord, it is equally noticeable that Dracula lives out his existence in complete opposition to Christ. It is not difficult to see this. In Christian society if someone (even if only a fictional character) runs from the cross at every turn, takes others’ blood by force to live on, and lives under the banner of one named ‘dragon,’ he is hardly an accidental horror of any one person’s imagination.  No, Dracula is all of us at our worst. He is the dead man within who refuses to give up his life so that others may carry on; he is sin and desperation persisting until the very end. And so this Lent you and I do battle with the anti-Christ but not the one to be found at the end of our human story.  Instead we turn inward and find there a Dracula who has been hiding within our interior castle for far too long.  Let us take up the wood and slay our enemy; it is Lent after all.