I’ve been reading (My Bedtime Reading list is horribly behind; I’ll try to get to that this week.) and thinking and listening and talking and changing. It had been a while since I had to put together a concise answer to the title question… much less one for a four year old. Last night, however, Samantha gave me the opportunity. Let me know what you think of my efforts.

As I was tucking her into bed, she made a standard request for me to sing her a song. I wanted to sing (or hum, as I didn’t remember many of the words) "O Come, O Come, Immanuel." I told her it was an Advent song; she asked what Advent was; and during the explanation Jesus’ death on the Cross came up. Ever full of questions, Samantha asked, "Why did Jesus have to die?" This was our conversation slightly edited to remove the some of the repetition essential to conversations with four-year olds and to remain more or less on topic in the way four-year olds don’t:

"God wants us to do two things. What are they?

"Share."

"Right! Sharing is one way we love other people. God wants us to love other people. What’s the second thing?"

"Obey God."

"Right! God wants us to love him, and the way we do that is by obeying him. So, the two things God wants us to do are to love him and to love other people.

"Now, do you know what sin is?"

Silence.

"When we don’t love God or other people that is called sin. Remember the line from the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Forgive us…’"

"Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us."

"Right! Sin, that’s when we don’t love each other and God. Now, what happens when we sin, when we don’t love God and each other?"

Silence

"You and I are really close, right?" She nods, and I illustrate this by putting my hands together. "Remember a few weeks ago when you called me a silly name, but wouldn’t tell me what it was?" She nods again. "What happened to us?"

More silence.

"We came apart, didn’t we?" I pull my fingers apart just a little bit. "By not answering my question and disobeying, some sin got in between us and pushed us apart a little bit. And if more and more sin gets in there, then we get further and further apart." Now my hands are a few inches apart.

After a short digression on what a relationship is, we return to the topic at hand. I continue using my hands to illustrate.

"Now, just like how sin can come between two people, sin can also come between God and people and push apart their relationship."

"Everybody has a relationship with God."

"No, sweetie, not everyone."

"Why not?"

"Well, because of sin. God always wants to have a relationship with people, but sometimes there’s just too much sin in the way. Some people don’t want to have a relationship with God. Others, because there is so much sin in there, they don’t even know that God wants to have a relationship with them.

"So, back to why Jesus had to die. Jesus came and died on the Cross, so that all the sin that gets between two people and between people and God can go away. It’s like Jesus does this to the sin." At this point my hands are a couple inches apart. I blow between them and clap my hands together. "Because Jesus died, the sin can be blown away and people can be back together with each other and with God."

Thankfully, she didn’t ask how Jesus dying makes it possible for the sin to go away. Nothing was coming to mind.

As we returned to the initial topic of Advent, she commented that Jesus was going to come back one day. (Must have picked this up in Sunday school.) I said, "I can’t wait, because then all the sin that’s left everywhere is going to be blown away and never come back again." By now she was getting into the blowing and clapping along with me. "And that is gonna be great!" With that, I hummed the song.

So, how’d I do?