How Low Can You Go?

Cultural Decadence in Ascensiontide

I just wasted a whole bunch of time I could have been reading an actual book looking at what people wore to the Met Gala this week. And, I’m sorry, but this is so lame:

I’m not even sure who these two people are, though I feel like I’ve seen them before, perhaps in some fevered dream. The dress doesn’t really look very nice on either of them. Her shoes are lovely, but her hat is a mess and the dress doesn’t have enough material—it just looks uncomfortable and weird. What are all the big black blobs? Seriously, someone give that lady a pie.

But the man? My gosh. I’m not quite sure what even to say, except that he must not like himself very well, nor anyone else. Perhaps he’s given up on life and just doesn’t feel like trying. I suppose they meant it to be fun, somehow. A lighthearted effort to amuse themselves and others. If so, it just doesn’t seem, to me, to be very successful.

Then there’s Cardi B:

A YouTuber I happened to click past, who was pretty funny, pointed out that given the theme—the garden of time or whatever—she must have been aiming to represent the mulch. You have to really spread it thick. This costume required nine grown men to carry it so that she could walk.

And then there’s this:

Who is this gentleman? Not that I really want to know. He looks like perhaps he is a couple short of a full matchbox.

All of these ridiculous costumes seem fairly benign—ugly, expensive, a waste of time and resources for sure, but on the whole harmless. But then I came across this horrible horrible horrible clip—don’t click it unless you want to feel sick—of a nurse placing a newborn baby onto the hairy chest of an adult man in pigtails and lipstick lying in a hospital bed. When the baby’s lip began to tremble—for it was crying very much—I clicked away.

So, today is Ascension Day, for all those who celebrate such things, and I must say, I think I probably feel a little bit like the disciples did, gaping into the sky, wishing very much that the Lord Jesus had not decided to return to the Father’s side, unsure about what his plans were. I, at least, do know about the Holy Spirit, and understand that we are, none of us who believe, left as orphans, for the promised Helper has come. But I don’t think it’s at all hard to feel the reverberations of alienation and anxiety that convulse all of humanity.

The disciples dutifully shut their mouths, though, when the angel told them to go wait a bit, and straggled back to the Upper Room, spending the long hours praying in the Temple and reading the Bible with renewed fervor. For Jesus did have to go up and sit down, showing that the work he accomplished on our behalf was in fact done, that he had purchased our redemption and drawn us up into the very throne room of Heaven, to make all our requests known to God and to have them heard.

Jesus, thus, seated at the right hand of the Father in glory, is the very opposite of the paltry, pathetic attempts of wicked men to indulge themselves, to devour the poor, the orphan, the alienated, the cast down. For he is always ready to hear, to answer the cries of those who call to him. He has the power to save and to redeem. He is patient, kind, long-suffering, good, and above all, powerfully able to accomplish his purposes in the world. And one of those purposes is to use your prayers—and mine—on behalf of those who need him the very most, people like that baby and that wicked man and even the nurse and the doctor and every single person involved however many times over that this happens in every place. The Lord is King over the whole earth and yet he leans forward to hear our pleas for mercy, for strength, for forgiveness, for help, and to intercede on our behalf.

For Heaven’s sake, then, pray and pray.