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Why Easter is Not My Favorite Christian Holiday — No Guilt
By Jane Tawel
April 21, 2025
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Next to Christmas, Easter seems to be everyone’s favorite holiday, at least in the Christian-Western world. It is no longer one of my favorites and it isn’t so much the fact that, like Christmas, these holidays have morphed into a non-religious Santa and the Easter Bunny party-time, not at all really Holy-days, no matter how you dress up your theology or that you may call it “Christ-Mass” or “Resurrection Sunday” etc. No, I am not all that keen anymore because both Christmas and Easter are focused on “get-me-mores” on the one hand and on the “religious hand” more focused on the “feel-good-about-me’s because of something Someone else did” hand; and both are what I see as a tragic reality of people’s desire to skip to the top of the mountain-top experience, without first experiencing the long, grueling climb. The thing is, the world has become so full of the desire to feel pleasant and superior, without any need to suffer and without knowing that in order to actually be happy or “saved”, we are not told to pin our hopes on the idea that Jesus did all, but to take up our own cross (His words, not mine). (For a great thesis on the truth about being happy, see the Dalai Lama in his book, “The Art of Happiness” — a great lesson on the difference between seeking pleasure versus seeking happiness).
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Anyone who truly knows me, knows that I have what some would call a “guilt-complex”. And sometimes I feel apologetic about this as it can lead to a disabling, fearful sense of shame and also a harsh judgement mentality of others as well as myself. But lately, as I see a world riddled with ego-driven and narcissistic superegos, and people who treat others not just as inferior but as less than human, I am here making a case for feeling guilty. And I don’t mean these non-guilty superego folks are just the usual suspects in narcissism and power-mongering and greed, I mean us little folks have become that way too. Now, there is a difference between feeling guilty and feeling shame, and there is a difference between feeling guilty for something you have done wrong and making someone else feel guilty or ashamed — that is the judgement that Jesus warns us against — both for our own selves and for others. But we have come to a place where many of us — most of us — can not even admit we are wrong, let alone sinful before God and toward others. (For the very best help with recognizing the advantages of accepting when one is wrong, at least the best after the teachings of Jesus, see Kathryn Schulz in her exceptional book, “Being Wrong”.)
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In the past several years, mostly as I have seen the religion that I have espoused for most my life, change beyond all recognition into something so sad it hurts me, I have learned more about what I believe Jesus taught and about how it fits into the True Truth that is available to all and in all True Truth teachings. I remarked to a friend of mine that I am so glad I got out of America’s Christianity in time to hopefully begin to find Christ. And in light of this new, intentional, serious, and yet joyfully awe-inspiring journey, I have come to recognize that my favorite Holy-days are Ash Wednesday leading into Lent and Palm Sunday. Now I got you on that last one, didn’t I? Because you thought I would say Good Friday. But in defense and support of feeling Guilty, here are my reasons.
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I have celebrated Ash Wednesday for many years, even though I have never been Catholic. For me, Ash Wednesday is like the Jewish Holy-day that Jesus would have celebrated that is now called, Rosh Hashanah. Rabbi Barbara Aiello explains, “Jesus, who was born, lived and died a Jew, was well-versed in the tradition of ashes as a symbol of penitence and “teshuvah” a Hebrew word that signifies the return to a God- guided life. In fact, Jesus is said to make specific reference to ashes when he referred to the towns of Tyre and Sidon, rebuking them for their reluctance to engage in traditional practices of repentance by donning sackcloth and ashes. (Matthew 11:21) (https://rabbibarbara.com/2024/02/15/ash-wednesday-ashes-have-roots-in-jewish-tradition/). Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the New Year and it is “celebrated” with a time of repentance and penitence, as Ash Wednesday is meant to do. Rosh Hashanah culminates after ten days (the number of completion) in Yom Kippur and Lent (after forty days, the number of completion of Jesus’ suffering and trials) in Easter. Now, I was raised a good Baptist in the Midwest, so the idea of ritual (ashes on the forehead) and fasting (from food or some pleasure or addiction during Lent) was completely foreign to me. But for probably twenty some years now, I have worn the ashes on my head to signify my need to look inside and humble myself in light of what I would call “The Divine” or the “Eternal Mystery” that is pure Goodness, pure Truth, pure Joy and Peace, and pure Life compared to us little ants on this little planet. I practice Lent by giving up something I find pleasure in (one year it was the newspaper, one year Facebook, one year sugar, this year I did an economic boycott on all but the necessaries) and every year — every blasted year — I FAIL! And this is a great lesson in humility and a great lesson in forgiveness — humbleness in the face of my daily failings and forgiveness in my need of forgiveness — of others and myself. It also really, really, really makes me respect what I know about the life of Jesus.
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Now a lot of people see the celebration of Palm Sunday as a wonderful religious event that shows how people loved and adored Jesus as a king. I have come to believe this is not at all how Jesus experienced Palm Sunday. The reason I have come to like Palm Sunday is because it holds a mirror to human hypocrisy — and I hold that mirror to my own hypocrisy with trembling hands. Oh, dear Jesus, how he tried to teach us what his Kingdom was really like and how we just didn’t want — still don’t want — to hear it. “My Kingdom is not any thing like these kingdoms you worship here and is not “of this world”.” “If you want to follow me, take up your OWN cross and die to the praise, the ego, the self-centeredness, the desire for power or fame or fortune”. Jesus loved to act out his teachings and parables and he chose to ride to his triumphant celebration on a little colt. As a king, he would have ridden a steed, a war horse, or in a horse- drawn carriage. As a suffering servant of God’s Truth and Light, as a messenger of a different Kingdom, a different Way, he chose to ride something small and weak — a colt is a child-horse, chosen as a fun, subversive visual for the crowds to remember along with his words, that to “enter the Kingdom, you must become like a child”. So, I like to stand in a church that gives the congregants a palm leaf (easy to come by out here in California). And I like to wave my palm with the others, but I most often now have tears streaming down my face as I wave the frond because I know that I am a hypocrite. I claim to “follow” Jesus — as long as it doesn’t cost me too much. And I remember that what Jesus said it would cost me to follow him is — Everything.
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But I don’t want to leave you with guilt with no recourse because guilt with no recourse leads to either anger or despair. I have begun to find my way towards a purer, cleaner, more healing emotion about so many things, including guilt, and that is — grief. On the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he looked upon the city, the symbol of his day’s (and today’s) religious power and the epicenter of the theology of his time, and rather than anger, he felt a deep sorrow. “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19: 41–44) Matthew has these heart-wrenching words as Jesus feels the grief a mother feels for her children as they stray from the path, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37) It takes a good amount of looking clearly and humbly at oneself to recognize that one is weak and in need of help, to run to be covered by the Wings of a loving Parent-figure. It takes even more strength to look at all the things one has done and does do that are wrong and accept one’s guilt with humility but also with Love. Just as if one wants to walk the Christ Way, the Tao, one must look on others and accept their guilt with humility and great Love. This kind of guilt leads not to shame, but actually leads to “the peace that passes all understanding”. Would that I would “know on this day, the things that make for peace”.
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Today we have so little recognition of our frailty or brokenness, of our transgressions or our errors. We refuse to see that we are wrong or hypocritical and yet, we point the finger at others. We mistake the symptoms for the problems. And we look to today’s earthly kingdoms and kings for salvation rather than the Son of the Man who came to show us a way — a different way, The Way to True Truth, to true Joy, and to true Life. We mistake our theology for faith, our kingdom for God’s kingdom, and our minds for the Mind of Christ. And because of our lack of self-reflection and truth about the human condition, we skip the tough or bad parts and instead hope to achieve all through Someone else’s effort, which in the current case of Christianity means forgiveness without repentance, Palm Sunday without humility, and Easter without taking up our own Cross. We head straight to the happy endings and the Disney version of what it means to be a hero — awash in the greyness of no black and white morality and no guilt.
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When Jesus died on a cross, he asked His Father to “forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing”. The older I get the more I realize how true that is — I have no idea what I am doing. And I desperately need forgiveness for my ignorance just as much as for my sins, sins of commission and omission, sins known and unknown, sins done and sins left undone.
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On what we now call Easter Sunday, when Jesus appeared to his followers, they didn’t recognize him. In the same way, we don’t recognize him today if he doesn’t fit into our neat little theological package, perhaps with the flag stamped across the top, tied up with the bow of our preferred denomination. Yes, I know this will not be a popular post but then I am seeking to follow The Way of people like Jesus who may have had their moments of popularity but which ended up as mercurial moments, evaporating quickly as people chose the religious or political kingdoms rather than the Kingdom of God. Tragically, today, people still prefer Golden Calves or Barbabas — they make us feel better about ourselves and better about our chances. I will take a chance on my guilt and on the forgiveness of the one human who counted the cost of death in light of the hope of the Eternal Kingdom.
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So, if you are still reading, I make here an unpopular case for feeling guilty and for finding perhaps your own times and your own rituals and your own symbols that will give meaning to your own very human self. And then as you understand that all is forgiven in the same way you will need to forgive all others and forgive all in yourself, you may as I am trying to do choose to use that guilt to get off the side-roads and onto the Straight and Narrow Road that Jesus assures us leads to Life and Life Abundant!
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I don’t really like Easter or as you will, “Resurrection Sunday”, because I don’t know it. No matter what others say, the only Risen Jesus I know is the one who lives in the humility of those who believe that we are created “from dust and to dust we will return” and who lives in the Love of those who believe that “greater Love has no one, than that she lay down her life for others”. But I do know a whole lot about my own brokenness and frailness and sinfulness and guilt and I know a whole lot about my own hypocrisy and posturing. So my favorite Holy Days are the days when the truth about me can be brought before my Creator. And year after year, Ash Wednesday after Ash Wednesday, Lent after Lent, and Palm Sunday after Palm Sunday, I am still trying to learn what it means to be what Jesus called himself and called us to be — A Good Human — the Son of Man. And here is the “kicker” — I am finding that as my guilt turns to my grief and sorrow over the world, my loved ones, my friends, my neighbors, and my enemies — my grief turns to healing and I am often quite surprised as my sorrow turns into a strange and wonderous and true Joy. I am finding that God’s Kingdom and the Kingdom of Christ is nothing if not ironic — it is a true Living Paradox. To find one’s life, one must give it up; to be found, one must be lost; and to be saved, one must be guilty. It isn’t easy this straddling of the line between useful guilt and destructive shame, nor is it easy to find forgiveness in the same way I try to give forgiveness. But step by step, moment by moment, incremental as a piece of dust blowing in the wind, small as a speck of ash blown from a great fire — I am trying.
© Jane Tawel, 2025
Jane Tawel 