John the Baptist

John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin. His parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were very old and it was a miracle that they had a child in their old age. Zechariah was a priest and one day when he was praying in the temple, an Angel appeared to him and told him that he would have a son named John, who would be very special from the day he was born. Zechariah asked the Angel how this could be, because he was so old. The Angel told him that he would know this was from God because Zechariah would not be able to speak until his son was born. So it was that Zechariah lost his voice and could not speak until Elizabeth had the baby. When everyone asked Zechariah what his name was, he wrote down that his name was John – and because he believed that the child came from God he was able to speak again. John is called the Baptist, because when he grew up he started to prepare people for his cousin Jesus. He would teach people amazing things about God and he would baptize them with water and tell them to turn away from sin. He even baptized his cousin Jesus right before Jesus started his own mission and teaching. He told people to follow Jesus, because he could only baptize with water, but he knew that Jesus would baptize people with a greater power – the power of the Holy Spirit.