Audio recording Sermon manuscript: We spend a lot of our lives getting prepared. Children get prepared to go to school. Those in school get prepared to go to college. Those in college prepare for getting a job. Those with a job prepare for getting a house. We get prepared for marrying a spouse. We get prepared for having a child. We get prepared for grandchildren. We get prepared for retirement. We get prepared by writing a will. We get prepared for having a funeral. We prepare for a lot of things. One of the things that we should be prepared for, but often don’t prepare for, is to meet Jesus. The necessity of preparing for other things is obvious. We know that we have to prepare, otherwise it isn’t going to happen. When it comes to meeting Jesus a common thought seems to be: “I’m already prepared." “I went to Vacation Bible School when I was a kid. I went to Sunday School.” But these are pretty shabby preparations. Even lackadaisically attending the divine service every week can be pretty shabby. We prepare much more thoroughly for all kinds of other endeavors in our life. What if kids studied God’s Word as hard as they study to get a good job? But that doesn’t happen. The reason is that we don’t care. We figure that we’re already prepared, so we can indulge in whatever we might want to indulge in as the main thing in our life. This is strange, if you think about it. How can anything be more important than meeting God? But we are not nearly so logical or wise as we like to believe. Unbelief is deeply seated in our flesh. We lack the ability to think seriously about our Maker. We follow every distraction that might come our way. It’s like we’re supposed to be on our journey to God, but every off-ramp that comes along we can’t help but take. The billboard says, “Pleasure here!” And off we go. “Honors and recognition here!” and we put on our blinker. We are ready and willing to prepare for absolutely anything that holds out promise for our happiness and blessing, so long as it is not the one thing needful. This is why it is necessary for God to send John the Baptists. John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for the Lord. Like a good roadbuilder he shaves off the mountains and hills and fills in the valleys. He makes the crooked places straight. He makes the rough places smooth. Or, to continue on with the analogy that I’ve already started, the John the Baptists whom God sends put up roadblocks for the exits on the highway to our God. We need to prepare to meet the Christ. We’re never going to be prepared if we are always getting off the highway to pursue any and every other goal besides meeting our Maker. But the John the Baptists whom God sends do not have a very easy time doing this. With practically all the prophets whom God calls to be his messengers, they all answer pretty much the same way. They all say, “Not me. I don’t want to do this.” People are stubborn as mules. We want to do what we want to do. While we are doing what we want to do we want to be assured that what we are doing is fine. It is in the nature of roadblocks that they are essentially saying, “This isn’t fine. You aren’t fine if you do this.” People don’t like hearing this. This is what brought about John the Baptist’s death, as Luke mentions at the end of our reading. He told Herod and Herodias that it was wrong for them to divorce their spouses so that they could be together. They were committing adultery with each other. They, and especially Herodias, did not like this. When an opportunity arose to remove the head of John the Baptist from his shoulders and put it on a silver platter, she jumped at the chance. She didn’t repent. She got even. Or so she thought, anyway. She thought that she won in a contest between herself and John the Baptist, but John the Baptist was never playing her game. All true prophets and all genuine Christians do not say what they say because they want to dominate over other people. They do not put up roadblocks becau