There is no mistaking the message of the scriptures today, no mistaking Isaiah, no mistaking Peter, and no mistaking John.  They are warning us to get ready.  “Prepare the way of the Lord.  Make straight His paths.  Each valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill be made low; the winding way shall be made straight, and the rough way smooth.”  Peter tells us, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar, and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.”  Everything will be found out.  What happens here doesn’t stay here.  “Therefore, beloved,” and these warnings are given because we are so greatly loved by these great figures of the scripture, “beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before Him at peace.”  In other words, get your act together, fix up your life, now.
 
Shortly after 9/11, that tragic day that we will never forget, there was a wonderful article in the Wall Street Journal, written by Peggy Noonan.  Some of you, no doubt, are familiar with this particular writing.  Let me just read part of it to you.  She writes,

“We have learned, as a priest put it, that the age of the genius is over, and the age of the hero has begun.  The observation is that of Father George Rutler, a Roman Catholic priest, who ran to the Trade Center when the towers were hit.  As New York’s firemen, the first and still greatest warriors of the current war, passed the priest on their way to the building, they would pause for a moment and ask for prayers, for blessings, or for the Sacrament of Confession.  Soon they were lined up to talk to him in rows, ‘like troops before battle,’ he told me.  He took quick confessions, and finally gave General Absolution, the way you do in war, for this was a war. 

When I heard this story, it stopped me dead in my tracks, because it told me what I wondered.  They knew.  The firemen knew exactly what they were running into, knew the odds.  And yet, they stood in line, received the Sacrament, hoisted the hoses on their backs, and charged.” 

Three hundred fifty three of them died within minutes after this incident.  Most of them, almost all of them, were Christian; the majority of them were Roman Catholics, mostly of Irish, Hispanic, and Italian origin.  These men were about to give their lives for another.  They were, in effect, about to die the death of a martyr.  Yet, they thought, they needed confession.
 
Advent is a week old, with three to go.  Has it made any difference in your life?  What have you done to “Prepare for the Way of the Lord”?  What area in your life do you need to make straight? 
 
I want to read to you another brief letter, from a Dutch patriot who was martyred by the Nazis in World War II, him and two of his friends.  They were captured as they tried to escape to England.  They were sentenced to death, and killed.  The man’s name is Klee.  I spent an hour trying to find his first name and failed.  He was 23 years old when he was killed.  He wrote this letter to his father, an hour or so before his death.

“Dear Father,  It is difficult for me to write this letter to you, but I have to tell you that the Military Court has pronounced a very hard sentence on us.  Read this letter alone, and then tell mother carefully.  In a little while, at 5 o’clock, it is going to happen.  One moment, and then I shall be with God.  Is that after all such a dreadful transition?  I feel so strongly my nearness to God, and fully prepared to die.  I think it is much worse for you then for me, because I know that I have confessed all my sins and have become very quiet.” 

Blessed are you, if you are able to say those words at the moment of your death. 

“I feel so strongly my nearness to God, and fully prepared to die.  I have confessed my sins and have become very quiet.”