James Thurber once told of a thin and lanky prophet who went around his boyhood hometown crying, "Get ready! Get ready! The world is coming to an end!" The community called him the Get-Ready Man.

That tag could have been applied to John the Baptist. He was a get-ready man if there ever was one: "A voice crying in the wilderness, ˜Prepare the way of the Lord.’"

This is the season of getting ready. That is the purpose of Advent. It is a time to get ready for the celebration of the Lord’s birth.

Norm Lawson tells of two friends who were visiting over coffee. One of them was very harried. Frazzled, in fact. It was just a few days before Christmas, and she wasn’t ready ”hadn’t gotten the cards out; hadn’t gotten any presents yet; didn’t have a tree. In fact, the friend was complaining that C…