The next morning Sandra knew a busy day lay ahead.  Because her auntie had come there would be lots of visitors dropping in to meet her and to collect all the things she had brought for them from their friends and family.

Most of the people who came were not interesting (to Sandra) and she kept as much out of sight as she could, although her mother kept calling her to pass around sweets and things to eat. 

She wondered about all the different people – they all seemed to be happy and nice, but did they ever do bad things?  Sandra began to think that maybe she was the only one who was like that and maybe it would be better not to talk about it or people would laugh at her. 

While she was thinking this, suddenly, everything went black and she felt like she was being squeezed.

“Hello Miss Muffet!” said a familiar voice.

“Stephanie!” cried Sandra as she struggled to get free from the hugs and out from under the shawl that had been thrown over her head.

Stephanie was about the same age as Monika and just as much fun.  She had come to visit Auntie with her mother and Sandra was so glad to see her. 

“Now Muffet,” said Stephanie after they were able to finally get away from the crowd, “Monika has been telling me stories about you.  What have you been up to?”

“Nothing!” protested Sandra.  “Well, not nothing really.  Stephanie, why is it so easy to be bad?”

Stephanie just stared at her without saying anything.  She looked a bit shocked and a bit embarrassed.

Sandra turned red.  She wished she had kept quiet.  Now Stephanie wouldn’t like her any more.  She felt she was going to cry.

But Stephanie came over to her and hugged her in a very gentle and loving way.  Sandra thought she saw tears in her eyes.

“Dear Muffet,” said Stephanie, “I wish I knew.  I really do.  We can all be nice sometimes, but so often we are not at all nice on the inside.  And what’s worse, sometimes it comes out and everybody sees what we are like.”

“It’s better that nobody knows, but the trouble is…” Sandra didn’t like to finish what she was going to say.

“The trouble is what?” asked Stephanie.

“The trouble is God knows.  He must know if He is God, mustn’t He?  He knows everything, even what we think!”

They both sat silently for what seemed like a long time, taken up with their own thoughts.

Suddenly, Sandra jumped up excitedly.

“I know.  Monika said something about a lamb, but I forget what it was.  Do you know Stephanie?  It was something about Yeshua and a lamb?”

“…who takes away the sin of the world,” said Stephanie, slowly and deliberately.

“Yes, that’s it.  Monika said that the man who baptised Yeshua said that Yeshua was a lamb, no, THE Lamb, who does that.  I wish He would take mine away.  Bad is ugly and horrible.  But how?  How does He do that, and why is He called a lamb?  What’s that got to do with it?”

“Listen Muffet,” said Stephanie gently. “Listen carefully.  In the old days the people used to kill a lamb whenever they remembered their sins and wanted to be near God.”

“That’s terrible!” cried Sandra, jumping up and interrupting.  “The poor lamb!  The lamb did nothing wrong!  That’s not fair!”

“No, it’s not!  And that’s the point,” Stephanie said strongly.  “The people thought that that was all there was to it, but actually the lamb was a message.  The message was that to have their sins taken away an innocent one would have to die.  A lamb was not enough for that.  It had to be someone great enough and good enough to carry the sin of the whole world.  And who do you think that was?”

“The man, who was a boy before, who was a little baby, who the shepherds said was the Coming One?  Yeshua?  By Himself?  The whole world?  And mine too?” 

Sandra dropped back into her seat.

Just then Monika walked in.  She had been standing at the door and listening.  She took down the Bible from the shelf and opened it up and read out this part:

“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

“It’s horrible!” said Sandra after a pause.

“What is?” asked Monika and Stephanie together.

“It’s horrible that all the bad stuff in the world, and even all my bad stuff (she remembered how she had hurt her auntie), was put on Him.”  Then she said, “They killed the lambs themselves, but how did He die?”

“They killed Him,” said Stephanie.

“Why didn’t He stop them?  He could have.”

“When the baby was born they called Him Yeshua because it means “God saves” and this is how He saves.

Monika turned to another place and read:

“God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

“I believe in Him,” said Sandra very seriously.  

And then she said, “I think He is just like Auntie.”

“What?” said Monika, smiling and a little surprised.

“Well, I hurt Auntie yesterday, and she still loved me, and when I was sorry she forgave me and loved me more!”

“He is not at all like your auntie,” said Stephanie laughing and wrapping up Sandra in a big hug.  “But your auntie sure seems to be a lot like Him!”

And they all laughed and even cried a little, and hugged each other, and laughed again.

[The End]