Children Keep Us On Our Toes

I read a story each Wednesday to the children in our Weekday Children's Ministry. It's one of the highlights of my week! The children come from all sorts of backgrounds and home lives. I don't know if they are Christian families or not (except for the ones that go to my church).
On this particular day, I was telling the children about National Library Week. We talked about all kinds of books: books of information, like dictionaries; books with directions in them, like cookbooks; books with maps; books with nothing but pictures; books just for fun.
Then I held up the Bible. I told them it was a very special book with lots of stories and interesting characters. I told them it teaches us the way to live in peace with one another and with the world. Then I read the story The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. That's when it happened. As I was explaining that God's love follows us around just like the mother bunny followed the baby bunny, and that God would never leave us because we are his children. A hand went up in the back. "What does Jesus do?" he asked.
I was caught completely off-guard. I had to think for a minute. How do you explain to a three-year-old what Jesus does? The fact that he died for our sins is pretty difficult to explain. So, I went with the basics. I told him that, just like God, Jesus loves us very much. And since he is the son of God, we are all his brothers and sisters, if we believe in him and have faith in God. I told them He set an example of how we are to live and told us to love everyone, no matter who they are.
How do you answer a question like that? What DOES Jesus DO? I'm still working on a better answer for the young boy. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. How does that translate into three-year-old concrete understanding level? I remembered something my father told me all the time growing  up. "Just always remember to keep the main thing the main thing."
So I taught them about the love of God being so big that He sent his son to share that love with us. Jesus loves us and teaches us to love God and each other. The main thing is: Jesus loves you. God loves you. And I love you. That's all we really need to know about what Jesus does. He loves. Yes, there is much more to learn in our daily walk with our Savior. Yet Christ himself said the greatest commandment is to love God with all our being and the second greatest is to love others as we love ourselves. I hope the children went away knowing that God, Jesus and Pastor Caren love them. I wonder what question they'll ask next.........