A Jewish Girl, Easter, and the Words That Broke Me

In the early 2000s, I was living in the Bay Area when I attended a lecture by Marianne Williamson.

I had followed her work for years—going back to the early ’90s when I first saw her on Oprah and read her book, A Return to Love. As a Jewish woman, she spoke in a way that felt familiar to me, and I was drawn to her teachings on A Course in Miracles, which is supposedly from Jesus. It kind of made logical sense to me—He gave us the Old Testament, and then the New Testament, so it seemed plausible that He might give us another “book” —guidance for the age we’re living in.

It may have been Easter ’04 or ’05 when she gave a talk where, for the first time, I heard about the life Jesus lived—sinless—and the brutality of the way He was killed.

And then she shared the words He spoke from the cross:

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

I remember sitting there in tears.

It wasn’t just sadness. It was something deeper—something in me breaking open. I didn’t have the full understanding of who He was yet, but I knew there was something about Him that was unlike anything I had ever encountered.

After that, I became what I would jokingly call “the nice Jewish girl who loved Easter.”

There was something about that story—about Him—that stayed with me. And in some way, I felt a resonance, having walked through several of my own emotional crucifixions and resurrections.

I didn’t have the language for it at the time. I didn’t yet understand the depth of what His life, death, and resurrection truly meant. But something in me did recognize it.

Looking back now, I see it so differently.

At the time, I was learning about Jesus through a lens that wasn’t rooted in Scripture. But that didn’t stop God from revealing His Son to me.

God was still intent on “teaching” me about who His Son was and is, and leading me to Him—long before I even knew I was on that journey.

Long before I understood it.

Long before I knew Him.