Day 20: Easter

I know we’re deep in the heart of the Christmas season, but today I’m going to talk about Easter instead. It is, after all, the most important Christian holiday—although I have to admit that, even as a child, I didn’t care for it much.

I know it’s my own fault—and my own selfishness, probably—but to me, Christmas is a lot more fun than Easter. But we’ll talk about that a little later. For now, let’s just stick to the facts.

Easter is pretty much the center point of Christianity. It’s the celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead after being crucified—which is, of course, the whole driving force behind Christian faith.

Like Christmas, Easter has its own “lead-up” season—Lent. Like Advent before Christmas, Lent is a period of fasting and repentance and a time to prepare for the joyous celebration of Easter.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (right after everybody gets all the sin out of their systems at Mardi Gras). On Ash Wednesday—the seventh Wednesday before Easter Sunday—Catholics and the members of some other Christian denominations go to church and get a dab of ashes on their foreheads. When the priest or minister rubs the ashes on your forehead, he says something along the lines of “Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.” (The exact words vary a bit, depending on where you go to church.)

I always hated Ash Wednesday. As if it isn’t depressing enough to have the priest remind you of your mortality, you’re forced to spend the whole day with people telling you, “Hey, you’ve got some dirt on your face.” Yeah, I know they’re just trying to help, but seriously. How stupid and/or filthy do people think I am that I wouldn’t notice a big smudge of ash on my head? Plus, Ash Wednesday sucks because you know the real suffering—Lent—is coming.

As a Catholic child, I always had to give something up for Lent. Although I tried unsuccessfully to give up things I hated to begin with—like lima beans—that never really flew with my dad. The whole point is that it’s supposed to be a sacrifice, so you have to give up something you really love.

Usually, during my childhood, I picked things like candy or ice cream. That was a good way to get past the Dad barrier, since most kids love candy and ice cream. What Dad never realized was that I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth, so giving up candy isn’t much harder for me than giving up lima beans. Or Brussels sprouts. Blech!

Many Christians also give up eating meat, especially on Fridays, during Lent. It’s just more of the same thing—sacrifice, fasting, and repentance—but it’s another reason I’ve always been annoyed during Lent. I mean, have you ever tried to get a pizza on a Friday during Lent? It takes forever, because most Christians (particularly here in America) see pizza as an easy alternative to a meat-based meal.

Anyway, the last Sunday before Easter is Palm Sunday. It’s the beginning of Holy Week, leading up to Easter Sunday. It celebrates Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem, when the local people hailed him as the Savior, throwing palm leaves in his path—that is, before they turned on him and told the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, to crucify him. (Incidentally, the ashes you get on your head on Ash Wednesday come from burning the palms used on the previous year’s Palm Sunday.)

On the Friday before Easter, Good Friday, Christians recall the day Jesus suffered and died on the cross. It’s a day of mourning. Many Christians—especially Catholics—mark Good Friday by meditating on the Stations of the Cross, a set of 14 pictures that detail the suffering Jesus went through before and during the crucifixion.

Finally, on Easter Sunday, the fasting ends and Christians celebrate how Jesus rose form the dead. It’s supposed to be the most joyful of the Christian holidays, because it’s a reminder of how God’s grace can renew life—both the life of the crucified Christ and the lives of all Christian believers.

I don’t know. Easter just seems kind of dull to me. Like I said, I’ve never liked it much. Maybe it’s because it takes place in the spring, when it’s still a little bit chilly but not cold enough to get all cozy in front of a roaring fire like people often do at Christmas. In my mind, Easter is an unpleasant day, when you have to sit around eating a boring meal with your family while wearing a flowery dress and an ugly hat, and shivering a little because it’s that awful in-between weather where it’s not cold enough to justify putting on the heat but too cold to actually be comfortable. Yuck.

Plus, there’s the “stuff” factor, always an issue for me. Easter is more or less about ideas—resurrection, renewal, rebirth—and not enough about stuff, like Christmas, with the presents and stockings and trees and wreaths.

Sure, there’s some stuff on Easter—like Easter baskets and eggs—but (at least in my humble opinion) it's pretty crappy stuff. Unless you’re a big fan of slightly stale jelly beans, plastic grass, and hard-boiled eggs that have their whites stained with dye, Easter doesn’t have much in the stuff department for you.

And that’s why I chose to be a Christian at Christmas instead. Even though just about everybody I know is too poor this year to afford lots of gifts and fancy decorations, Christmas still just seems like a lot more fun.