When is the best time for you to pick up around the house?  Now I don’t want to put words in your mouth this morning.  Maybe you have a scheduled time each week, that during this hour of this day you make sure stuff isn’t lying around at home.  Maybe you don’t have to set a time like that because in your mind it is always time to pick things up.  If you make a mess or set some mail on the table, you always take care of it right away.  You don’t clean up clutter because you don’t give clutter time to accumulate.  If you are in one of those schools of philosophy or even one better, I am happy for you.  But for me, and I am going to guess maybe a few of you here this morning, the best time to pick up around the house is when someone is coming over.  We morph into a frenzied ball of activity 30-45 minutes before company comes over.  Taking care of items that have sat at rest for days or maybe even weeks.  When it is all said and done and your company comes in and is impressed with how organized your home is, you are somewhat surprised with them because you haven’t had time to stop and consider how it looks following your whirlwind cleaning.  When is the best time to get your life ready for Jesus?  We saw last week, that every moment is a good time to be watching, because he is going to come and we don’t know when.  Today as our focus shifts to John the Baptist and his message, we want to consider when and how we can clean our lives up and get them set for our Lord’s coming.  When is the right time for us to turn things around, from sin and the ugliness of it, to holiness and the purity that God demands?

            The time to turn had come for the people in Judah and Jerusalem.  That was clear with the appearance of the messenger.  We heard in Isaiah chapter 40 this morning, how already at that time God promised to send a messenger that would prepare the way for the glory of God to be revealed.  Mark doesn’t leave it for you and me to miss the connection does he?  He lays it out right at the beginning of his Gospel.  “It is written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way’ – ‘a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  John was the one long foretold who would mark the Lord’s appearance. 

And his message was geared to get the people to turn.  He preached repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.  He preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  His message was turn from what you have been doing and saying.  Turn from sin and turn to the one coming after me.  John’s baptism brought the people repentance and forgiveness of sins.  John’s baptism and preaching were needed because John knew that the One coming after him was close at hand.  He focused the people’s attention there when he would say, “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I baptize you with water but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”  John urged the people to repent because Christ was coming.

The time for us to turn has come as well.  We have just as much of a reason to heed John’s message as the original hearers, if not more.  We find ourselves in a time in which we need to prepare.  We need to prepare for our celebration of Christ’s birth.  And our preparation is more than just making sure we have our lists checked off and houses cleaned up.  Our preparation for Christmas is getting our hearts ready to see our newborn Savior.  And we also know that now is the time to prepare for our Lord’s second coming.  John will not show up again preaching to us, repent for Christ is coming.  He does that to you and me right now.  The Advent messenger still cries out to you and me through these pages, turn from sin.  Turn from your hardness of heart and your mishandling of God’s commands.  Turn from such things and get ready because the Great One is coming behind me.

John implores you and me to see today as the time to turn.  The time to repent.  Do you?  Do you and I think about repentance very often?  And if we think about the word, do we actually do it or could we be guilty of lazy repentance?  What do you think about when we confess our sins together at the beginning of church?  Is it just one particular sin that bothers you that stands out in your mind or do you consider what you are saying when you confess you have disobeyed in thoughts, words, and actions?  When you do something that you know is contrary to God’s will during your week what do you do?  Do we let that sin pass with maybe a thought of, “oh I shouldn’t have done that,” and not much else?  Do we actually take the time to acknowledge that what I did was sinful and I need God’s gracious forgiveness for it?  Do we even attempt to leave behind the sins that we fall into regularly?  Not that our forgiveness is conditioned by never doing that sin again, but could you honestly say that you were making every effort not to fall again.  Or is it not a big deal?  Is daily repentance really how we live our lives or would it be more accurate to talk about “spot cleaning” repentance?  We will occasionally fess up to something and try to leave it.

Don’t you know who is coming?  The one for whom John the Baptist was unworthy to even untie his sandals.  What will you do if he comes and your life is not in order by repentance?  If you are racing around trying to clean and put things away, how does it feel when suddenly that company pulls into the driveway ten minutes early?  A sinking feeling if there ever was one.  How will you feel when your Lord finds you unprepared for his coming?  When he finds a life that is still wallowing in the mire of sin.  When we don’t take this time to turn from sin.

May you never find out what that would feel like.  But then let us take today to get ready.  Let us take today to turn from sin.  To repent.  How do we carry that out?  The way that we prepare for our Savior’s birth, the way we make the path straight for him, is by seeing how much we need him.  We honor the coming Savior when we see how much sin is a part of our life and our existence.  How often we do the things we don’t understand why we do.  How frequent are the thoughts that we don’t know why we think.  How abundant are the words that we don’t mean to say.  And then there are the sins that we enjoy!  The things we have rationalized and made small or not even really sinful anymore.  Finally, there are the big sins, the ones that we have to just try to forget about or pretend didn’t happen because if we acknowledge them or look at them we are crushed by the guilt of them. 

Prepare your heart for the coming of the Savior!  Don’t act like these problems don’t exist for you.  Don’t pretend that you are doing what God demands of you in his Holy Law.  Don’t close your eyes to your sins because you are afraid of them.  Turn from them.  Turn from them by seeing them for what they are.  Horrendous offenses to the holy and eternal God.  This sight of your sins is accomplished in your heart by the power of God’s Word and it is this sight that prepares you to welcome your Savior.  It is the truth of your sinfulness that sets your hearts utter and utmost desire on a Savior, who has been born to you.  As God’s message of repentance takes hold of your life, it is also what brings you to daily trust in this Savior who came once and is coming again.  Let today be the day that you understand that the reason you do those things you can’t believe you do is because of a sinful nature that still frustrates you.  But let it be the day that you see a God who did what the world can’t believe He did when he sent his Son to pay for those actions.  Let today be the day that you see those daily weaknesses not as small unimportant things, but constant reminders that God’s work of repentance in you is not a one time and done, but is your very life.  Let today be the day that you are no longer shocked by the big sins of your life, but let it be the day that you are shocked that Christ’s blood would cover those as well.  Let today be the day to turn.

God has equipped you and will work in you.  One of the powerful works that God places in your hands is your baptism.  John’s baptism brought repentance and forgiveness of sins.  Your baptism does as well.  Remind yourself daily of what your baptism means for you.  It means power to repent.  It means God’s power at work in you as you recall the gracious promises he made to you in your baptism.  That you are his dear child.  That sin need not control you any longer.  That he has washed your sins away.  Daily return to the waters of your baptism by daily enjoying the power God unleashes there.  The power of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  A power that is rooted in baptism connecting you to your coming Savior.

I am not going to tell you today how you should go about the business of keeping your house clean.  If you like me want to roll the dice and hope we can finish up before the doorbell rings, may your tidying be swift.  But let us together remember what our God encourages us when it comes to repentance.  It is not a last minute ditch effort before he shows up.  It is to be your way of life, as you daily see your sins in God’s law and turn from them.  As you daily are renewed in the forgiveness of sins won for you by Christ’s life and death that he carried out in his first coming.  This is why we can say with certainty that now it’s time to turn, because your God is eager for you to grow in holiness as you daily see and reject sin’s power, and as you daily trust in Christ’s forgiveness, the power of your turning.  Amen.