THEO, JESUS WOULD HAVE DIED ON THE CROSS JUST FOR YOU

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So Jesus died on the Cross. What's that got to do with me?

Another cri de coeur, this time from my grandson Theodore (Theo). Theodore, incidentally, means 'gift of God'. 

Theo is nine years old. Recently his mother was fairly gobsmacked when during his night prayers he suddenly threw himself across the bed and cried, "I'm sick of being naughty and guilty! It's the worst possible combination!" 

A priest who heard of this was gobsmacked too. So when Theo asked why Jesus dying on the Cross was a big deal, he deserves an answer. His mum says it's not easy to explain to a nine year-old. It's not easy to explain to grown-ups either but I'll have a go. Remember, I'm speaking to a nine year-old boy.

"The first people God made were Adam and Eve. He made them just like Himself. He even gave them his Power so they could do amazing things like zoom around the universe visiting planets. 

But his Power was only for doing good things, because that's all God ever does, is good things. The only difference between God and Adam and Eve was that if they wanted to they could use his Power to do bad things.  

Then God told them not to eat any apples off the Tree of Good and Evil in the beautiful Paradise he'd made for them. God said that eating one of those apples would kill their souls. Not their bodies, just their souls. It would be a Big Mistake. It was something they mustn't use his Power to do.

So what happened? The Devil wanted to get them out of Paradise and into Hell. So he came along disguised as a snake and told Eve if she and Adam ate one of those apples they would be exactly like God, and they would know everything about what is good and what is bad. And Eve fell for the devil's story and ate an apple and got Adam to eat one too.

Straight away Adam and Eve were changed. They felt naughty and guilty, because they were naughty and guilty. They had used God's Power to do something wrong. That's called a sin because it isn't good. Sin is bad because God's Power never does bad stuff. 

So God took the Gift of his Power away and sent them out of Paradise and closed the gates of Heaven so no one could get in when they died.

From then on Adam had to work really hard and when Eve had babies it really hurt, big time. And people got sick. The Devil had a great time getting people to do bad stuff and go to Hell. Everybody did bad stuff sometimes and some people were really bad, all the time.

Can you imagine what God thought about all that? He'd made people to be like him and be good and happy and live with him in Heaven for ever. That's what he wanted. But Adam and Eve sort of gave him the finger. They decided to do their own thing and so they were punished. That's because God is just, so he makes sure that in the end everyone gets treated the way they deserve.

So after that, when bad people died they went to hell where the Devil lives. And when good people died they went to a place called Limbo where they had to wait for Heaven's gates to be opened again. 

They had to wait a long, long time. Thousands of years. But God had a plan. He had this plan from the start because he knew that Adam and Eve would ruin everything. 

So what did God do? He sent his Son Jesus to be a person just like us, except of course he was God as well. He asked his Son to be born in a cold dirty cave and be poor and hungry all his life, and in the end he'd have to die nailed to a Cross. He even knew all about that before he was born. He thought about what was coming to him, all his life.

Why did the Jews hate him? Because he was good and they were bad. They were full of sins so they couldn't believe that Jesus was the Son of God they'd been waiting for, and Jesus was telling everyone the truth about the evil Jews, so they got the Roman governor to have him crucified.

The Son of God had to die nailed to a cross because nothing else could make up to God the Father for all the terrible sins that had been committed against him for thousands of years. 

Only one drop of the Son of God's Blood would have made up for everything, but God loves us so much he wanted his Son to suffer as much as he possibly could, to prove it, and Jesus agreed with him. because he loves us that much too.

Jesus would have died on the Cross JUST FOR YOU, THEO. ONLY FOR YOU. He did it to prove he would do ANYTHING, JUST FOR YOU, TO HELP YOU GET TO HEAVEN. That's because he loves every single person, even if they're bad, just as much as he loves everyone all put together. 

And then when he died, what did Jesus do? We pray in the Creed, "he descended into Hell". But he didn't go all the way down to where the Devil and his mates and the wicked people live. He went just as far as Limbo on the top level of Hell, and let out the millions of good people who were waiting for him, and took them all to Heaven, where God the Father had opened the gates and was waiting for them.

So Theo, Jesus died on the cross to make up to his Father for all the evil stuff everyone had done, starting with Adam and Eve. He did it to open the gates of Heaven. 

So because you've been baptised you have some of God's Power, and if you try your best to be good Jesus will give you more Power, and when you die you'll go to Heaven to be with Jesus and be happy FOR EVER."

Bob Gill says:
Out of the mouths of babes! Nicely put, Julia.