In the very first verse, Mark announced that he would write about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is surprising, therefore, that he did not start out by telling about Jesus Himself; instead, he described the work of John the Baptist. This was because John was to prepare the way for Jesus. John fulfilled this mission by preaching to get people ready for the coming of the Lord.

John's message focused on two themes that will help us get ready to receive Christ. 

First, he preached about repentance. To repent means to decide to change. It means to ask for forgiveness of the sins that you are in and turn away from them.

Here, we see John was telling his hearers that they had to reverse their life's direction to get ready for Christ; and those who were unwilling to change could not come to Christ, right.

And then Secondly, John declared the greatness of Jesus. He said Jesus was so great that he himself was not even worthy to stoop down and untie His shoes. This was an amazing declaration because we don’t have to have much worth to untie somebody's shoes. In fact, in John's day, untying shoes was considered to be a slave's lowest duty - John wasn't worthy to be Jesus' slave! 

So, for us to be ready to receive Jesus, we must repent (change our lives) and recognize His awesome greatness.