is coming to visit you may well suddenly want to give it another spring-clean. And the Jewish people, even the devout ones who worshipped regularly in the Temple, knew in their bones that they weren’t ready for God to come back. The prophets had said that God would come back when the people repented, turning to him with all their hearts. That was what John summoned them to do; and they came in droves. They came for baptism. John was plunging them in the water of the river Jordan as they confessed