Why did Jesus die?

What was it Lincoln said about the deaths of those killed on the field at Gettysburg? He said they "gave the last full measure of devotion." In other words, they sacrificed themselves for country and kin."God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son..." That is devotion to His creation. In the ancient Hebrew culture, sacrificing livestock, which was a valuable commodity in a pastoral society, was considered a way to atone for sin, and reconcile with God. One of Jesus' many names is "the Lamb of God" because he became the sacrificial lamb which atoned for the sins of mankind. He sacrificed himself to so that we could have things patched back up with God. No one is directly responsible for his death, because he sacrificed himself. (But you can say every one who sins is indirectly responsible, because without sin, there wouldn't have been a reason to reconcile us with God. An arguable point.)Sin is when we estrange ourselves from God. We turn away from Him. It is a natural result of being free-willed that we sin. We happen to be selfish creatures who act in our own interests more than we do for others' sakes. It's a constant struggle to try to think of others before we think of ourselves. But it is through our positive interactions with one another that we come closest to God. God came close to us by sending us His son, in the flesh, to be with us and teach us how to love one another. But to show his ultimate love for us, He sacrificed His own son to reconcile us with Him. He didn't say we had to pay for our sins--instead He paid for us. He couldn't just sacrifice an animal--He couldn't just sacrifice a human being--He had to actually appear to us Himself as a man so that He could pay the ultimate price for us. And what could be more painful, and therefore more full of sacrifice, than dying at the hands of the ones He loves--betrayed by the very ones He came to save? The last full measure of devotion.I'm sorry if Christians have misled and misrepresented what God's sacrifice is all about. I may be as guilty as anyone else, I don't always communicate well, and that's probably due to the fact that I don't think hard enough before attempting to. I hope I did okay here and got the point across that I was aiming to. But communication is a two-way street. You still have your half of the communication yet to do--that is, interpret my meaning from what I said...Peace