John the Baptist

En and I are reading Mark in the New Testament now. These few days, we will be reading about John the Baptist and his mission. Yesterday morning, En dressed up as John the Baptist, in his "camel hair" clothing and leather belt (daddy's soft cloth belt had to do it!). John ate locusts and wild honey. We pretended to eat some "locusts" (some of En's toys which did not look the least like locusts) and I gave En a tiny spoon of golden goodness (i.e., honey). He loved the honey. :)

I have read the story twice to En. He remembers well that Jesus said to John,

Baptise me." Hmm.. the challenging part for me is explaning baptism and what it represents. Currently, I have only gotten so far as to say that John dunked Jesus in the water and that baptism symbolises (even this is too big a word for En to understand) the washing away of our sins. For Jesus, it was necesary for him to be baptised to commence his earthly ministry. I don't think I will explain the last bit to En, maybe when he is a teenager.