Those Who Prepared the Way – Three

As we light our Advent Ring for each of the Sundays of Advent, we reached the third candle on Sunday 16 December. Each of the candles represent people or a person whose lives led up to Christ's coming at Christmas. The first candle had been the patriarchs (the leading fathers of Israel) Abraham Isaac and Jacob. The second had been the prophets whose message had told that the Messiah (Jesus) would come.

But who is candle three? The children were given a variety of clues including his desert diet – locusts and wild honey. The honey was pretty popular but there was general agreement that the locusts/insects were not going to be anybody's choice for dinner!

The third candle was for John the Baptist, Jesus second cousin, whose mission was both to call on the people of his time to repent of their sins and to announce the coming of Jesus. The call to change from what we are doing wrong is still equally relevant today.