Questions about Jesus on Easter

One of our friends asked us this question:
Have you talked about the meaning of Easter with L? Namely, Jesus dying on the cross? My daughter is asking questions and my husband and I have kind of put it off -- I guess we're wary of talking about death with her and haven't thought about a simple enough explanation to suit a child. If you have any thoughts to share on this, I'd love to hear them.

I think she is really smart and resourceful to go outside her family to ask such a question.

Here was my response:

I would open up the death conversation ASAP. Start talking about worms, butterflies, goldfish, grandparents ect...

We have had numerous occasions to discuss this with Lauren and it has prompted many brilliant questions from her.

Lauren has never asked about Jesus specifically, so we have stayed away from that topic. When she does ask I will tell her the story or Jesus. I am lucky, because I believe it is only a story and can emphasize that. For people who believe those events actually happened, and then it might get a little stickier, but not too much.

I would start with... Men were afraid of Jesus. They conspired to hurt him because they thought he could take their money and power away. So they killed him.

If she asked how he died, I would say something like: "back in history that they used to nail people to the cross when they had really bad behavior, but that is not done any more."

It seems like a good lesson to teach how fear and anger can lead people to do really mean things. Those people wrongly killed Jesus because they were angry with him and afraid of him. "How are you going to manage your fear and anger, young one?"

What are your thoughts on this topic?