Seriously, get ready!

Two Sundays before Christmas, the purple of serious spiritual preparation for Christmas gives way for the joyous rose of Gaudete Sunday and now, two days before Christmas, the joyful readings of expectation are tempered by today's first reading that reminds us of our need for serious preparation for the Lord's coming:

But who will endure the day of his coming?
And who can stand when he appears?
For he is like the refiner's fire,
or like the fuller's lye...

Before the day of the LORD comes,
the great and terrible day...

If we prepare seriously now, removing from our lives those things that lead us away from God, how much will God's joy be able to fill us when the Lord Jesus comes.