By Jaime Nava –
In a plethora of video games armor is a thing. Many times it’s like the Medieval era with different pieces for the head, feet, hands, chest. There are of course other accessories too. In many games, although the armor’s properties are identical, it looks completely different between the male and female characters. Even worse, when it is worn by female characters it is often skimpy and revealing. There are any number of websites and videos pointing this out. I can only figure this is a silly attempt to gather teenagers to their game while they drool on the keyboards over pixelated images. It’s gross, but it’s a thing. It devalues women. It isn’t truly armor. It is a farce.
Not to get into the area of The Man About Town but what women put on has definitely changed over time. Not much is left to the imagination. It’s part of the reason I stopped watching shows like Game of Thrones. I don’t need that. I’m well married and happily so. That and I don’t want to break the sixth commandment. Although I’m sure it remains close to its traditional roots, even the wedding dress has undergone the farce. Where white was meant for purity, now it can be cut short and the cleavage is well cleaved. In some cases, I can’t help but wonder if the designer came from the red light district. I don’t know if this is someone’s attempt to poke the eye of our ancestors or if they are actually oblivious to the irony.
This is surely the work of the devil. I don’t mean that in the way of the church lady from SNL. Or maybe I do. It’s his work to take the good and twist it into a construct that works away from God’s design. He works to cause us to cast the commandments to the ground in our mad grab for what our eyes are drooling over. He most especially wants the Bride of Christ, the Church, to flirt with the world. He wants us to attract people using short dresses and well cleaved cleavage. He wants us to think that we can do what the world does while we turn our eyes away from what God created us to be and do. The farce of the devil is at work even in something that should be pure and good, even in a wedding gown. Shoot, he even works through pixelated games to cause people to stumble.
The Bride of Christ has often struggled with this temptation. Read the book of Judges. They did what was right in their own eyes. Read Hosea, who he married, and why. Over and over throughout God’s Word, even in our own lives, we see that we are a farce. Where we tell God we’ll be better, we run off after some other idol. We flirt with the devil. We fall short of God’s glory. If I married someone who was caught in adultery, I would find it hard to trust her again. If she did it again and again, I would divorce, as much as I hate the idea. That is exactly what we do. We are the untrustworthy Bride that God has every reason to divorce.
What does God do with His snaggle-toothed, pock-faced, cross-eyed, balding, wretch of a wife who tries to woo other gods? He loves. He sends His own Son, the Groom, to find her in her filth. He gathers up all her offenses and carries them upon Himself. He scours the earth for her debts and calls all the debtors to witness His payment for them all. He opens the royal coffers of God’s Kingdom from His own side. The payment continues to satiate the desires of the Law’s condemnation. When the sweet water of God’s Word is poured on our heads, when the taste of heaven is on our lips, when the flood of forgiveness resonates in our ears, the ancient payment is tangible and real, for you. You are His Bride. Although you will let Him down He will never do the same. In blood He has purified us, white as snow.
St. Paul writes about our protection from the devil and his flaming arrows. We have a shield of faith. We have a helmet of salvation. We have a belt of truth. We have shoes prepared with the Good News. We have the Word of God as our sword. And the thing many want to open up for our shame to appear, where there was once death and a heart of stone is now a breastplate of righteousness. This is the true armor God desires for His Bride, the Church. He provides and protects us with these gifts, things the world doesn’t truly understand. This is no game. The devil would rather have our chest hanging out while the world would ogle. No, God makes us right and covers our shame.
