Matthew 3:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Homily:
A friend once asked me, “how long is at hand?”
He was referring to how long ago John, The Baptist proclaimed the words in the above passage, and how humanity has actually grown since then.
The assumption that judgment day is a group activity is misleading.
Humans are born one at a time, they die one at a time, the kingdom of heaven arrives one at a time. Judgment is a singular activity.
Hard as it seems to understand, the call for repentance is not to the crowd, but to the individual. Crowds endure, but the individuals passes away.
The call therefore us to the individual – Your time on earth is coming to an end with every breath, reconcile with your beginning.