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Why is Easter so early this year?

It seems like we just cleaned up from Christmas. It’s St. Patrick’s Day for heaven’s sake. Well, the reason goes all the way back to one of the first Church Councils in a place called Nicaea. It figures that a committee must have thought this up.

So actually, Easter hasn’t been as early as March 23 since 1913 and won’t fall on this date again until 2160! And if it seems like Easter is early this year, just wait till 2285 when Easter will fall on March 22– the earliest possible date.

So why all this changing around? It sure makes it difficult for surfers and church music directors to plan things. Here is the reason. It was decided at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD that the date of Easter is determined to occur on the first Sunday following the first full moon following the spring equinox.

An equinox? (Okay. I admit had to look it up.) The equinox is the moment in time when the center of the Sun is directly above the Earth’s equator– and thus divides the seasons. The spring equinox this year is Thursday, and the full moon is the next day. So Easter comes early.

Okay. If you are still reading, you probably will want to know that the earliest possible date for Easter, March 22, hasn’t happened since 1818 and won’t happen again until 2285. You might win on Jeopardy with that answer! The latest that Easter can occur is April 25. This happens a little more frequently, but the last time was in 1943 and the next ‘latest’ Easter won’t happen again until 2038. We can start planning now for a warm one.

The thing we really want to remember this week is that Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples in what we know as the Last Supper. He gave us the Lord’s Supper as a continuing remembrance of the events of this week. He was crucified on Good Friday, and rose from the grave on Easter Sunday. That’s worth celebrating every day!

The great truth for us is that every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday for the people of God. The Good News is that, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Cor. 5:17)