The gospel and Jelly Babies

[jambo]

One of the young lads in the youth fellowship drew my attention at the weekend to the fascinating story of Bassetts Jelly Babies. Jelly Babies were originally known as Peace Babies coming out after the end of WW1. The company stopped making them then after WW2 a Christian started to make them again this time calling them Jelly Babies. He designed in them a means of illustrating the gospel.

To get the story you have to lick off the floury stuff that they are sprinkled with. Once you do that you can see that the black jelly baby has a heart on it. This was used to illustrate sin and the darkness of the human heart. The green jelly baby is crying which the maker used to illustrate human misery. The red jelly baby has a big B on its chest which represents a blood sacrifice. The pink jelly baby is an actual baby which pointed to the need of being born again. The yellow jelly baby has a necklace around it which was to illustrate the riches and treasures of the Christian life whilst the orange baby is carrying a bag which illustrated the need of being prepared for the Christian walk.

I quite like Jelly Babies and don't know how many packets I would have gone through. I have never once thought of licking off the floury stuff to see the detail of each baby (I thought they were all the same) nor did it ever occur to me the significance the maker had attached to each one.

I don't know if you can get Bassetts products in America or not but you would find them in any shop that sells sweets over here.

 

[PhilA]

Hi Stuart

Do you have anything to corroborate? Wiki suggests (not that Wiki has to be correct!) that prior to 1989 all Jelly Babies were a uniform shape and that individual name and shape was introduced at that time. I was partial to them in my youth and don’t remember them being different other than colour and taste.