Lent Week 4: Friday | Matthew 22 (1-14)

To Duffy and the Church in North America: Peace and Grace from Brother Jonathan in Albany. It is Friday, March 20, 2026, of the fourth week of Lent, and as I write this, we are seconds away from the 10:46 AM Equinox. Our Introit for today, taken from Psalm 19:1, captures this singular cosmic alignment perfectly: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament shows his handiwork." This is not a passive observation; it is a profound cosmological declaration. At this moment of precise balance, the firmament itself shows us that God’s design is one of harmonious order. It is a signature in the stars that the old, dark Friday of Piscean sacrifice is passing, and the new Aquarian era of sustainable mercy and light is breaking through. Creation is shouting the very Gospel that our established institutions have long ignored.

While the heavens declare the glory, today's reading from Matthew 22:1-14—the Parable of the Banquet—reveals how the old geopolitical status quo is responding. The invited guests, those who have managed the "Temple" of our global systems for centuries, have refused the King's invitation to the feast of Shalom. They were "too busy with their farms and businesses"—frozen in their Piscean bureaucracy, protecting their investments in the carnist market and their nationalistic egos. N.T. Wright notes that their "no" was not an absence of belief, but an explicit rejection of the King’s authority. The parable warns that the "city" of those who reject mercy is being burned. The collapsing institutions of the Piscean Age are a direct result of their violent attempt to seize the vineyard, ignoring the Landowner's terms.

Therefore, the invitation has gone out to the highways and hedges—to us, the transformed outcasts, the born-again vegans, and the repentant latecomers of all kinds. We are called to the feast, not because we are better, but because we are available. But as we cross this Equinox threshold, we must address the final warning: The Wedding Garment. We cannot enter the new age of sustainable mercy while still wearing the old, tattered clothes of judgment, superiority, or half-hearted commitment. To not wear the garment is to claim to desire Aquarian Shalom while refusing the chaste, non-violent discipline required to live it. Let us allow God to remove our old, competitive egos and put on the white garment of Christ’s righteousness—the true signature of the Water Bearer. 

Conceived, directed and edited by Jonathan; written and illustrated by Gemini.