Animal Sacrifice

As we were attempting to read the scriptures as a family yesterday, my seven-year-old daughter mentioned that even Jesus makes mistakes.  I responded saying that Jesus was perfect and had never made mistakes, but she insisted that He had.  I eventually got out of her that she was upset about the fact that He would kill cute little lambs—that was His mistake.  She had been watching some Bible video and learned something about animals being sacrificed and though she hadn’t quite understood it correctly, I did explain that previously Christ had commanded that animals be sacrificed.  She didn’t like the idea of animals being killed, and so she ran out of the roof crying.  How do I explain the logic and reasoning of animal sacrifice to children?  

               We know from the scriptures that animal sacrifices existed from Adam all the way to the time of Christ when the Law of Moses was fulfilled.  It’s from Adam’s experience that we learn the reasoning for the command to make animal sacrifices.  After the Lord commanded that he and his posterity “should offer the firstlings of their flocks, for an offering unto the Lord,” and an angel came to him and asked him why he did that: “And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me.”  To this the angel responded, “This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth” (Moses 5:5-7).  The whole point of the animal sacrifices was to teach and remind the people of the sacrifice of the Savior which was yet in the future.  When Adam’s children Cain and Abel made sacrifices, the Lord showed He was serious about the offering being an animal.  We read that “Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord” but Abel “brought of the firstlings of his flock.”  Cain brought some kind of fruit or grain to offer to the Lord, and Abel brought animals as had been commanded.  Because Abel brought forth the sacrifice the Lord asked for it was accepted, but the Lord “had not respect” for Cain’s offering (Moses 5:19-21).  Sacrificing an animal to the Lord was the requirement.
               So why couldn’t the Lord have required something less dramatic—like Cain’s offering of the fruit of the ground—for this sacrifice that He commanded Adam to offer?  I don’t know all the reasons, but it seems that understanding the sacrifice of the Savior was so important that the Lord required His people to enact it in a symbolic way.  Through the shedding of the blood of an animal could God teach in the most powerful and memorable way about His own sacrifice.  It seems to suggest that our understanding of the atonement of Christ is of more value than preserving the life of animals.  But that is not to say that God approves of simply wasting the life of animals; as He said in our dispensation, “And wo be unto man that sheddeth blood or that wasteth flesh and hath no need” (D&C 49:21).   Our salvation is of more importance than any other concern of the Lord, and in His wisdom He commanded the practice so His children could learn of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father—the key to their receiving eternal life.