[A devotional reflection originally prepared for the congregation of Horley Baptist Church during May 2024]
Unlike Christmas Day, the date of Easter varies from year to year. The procedure for deciding the date is derived from decisions made at the council of Nicea in 325 AD and, like the Jewish Passover, the date is linked to the phases of the moon.
According to the established formula, Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon of Spring. A second rule is that Easter cannot be celebrated before 22nd March each year.
Most western denominations follow the ecclesiastical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church, which uses the Gregorian calendar, established by Pope Gregory in 1582 AD and intended to address some inconsistencies in the earlier Julian calendar. However, those denominations which follow the Eastern Orthodox system retain the Julian calendar, resulting in a different date for Easter.
This year, the first full moon occurred on 25th March according to the Gregorian calendar, giving a date for Easter of 31st March. This corresponds to 18th March on the Julian calendar. This latter date fails to meet the ‘22nd March’ requirement, meaning that Easter must be delayed by one lunar cycle. A further constraint on the Eastern Easter is that it must be after the Passover, which this year ended on 30th April, so the outcome is that the date for Easter Sunday is 5th May.
We in the west should not dismiss the Eastern Easter as being ‘wrong’, it is simply different. More importantly, it gives us a second opportunity to revisit the events that Easter commemorates and to give thanks again for what the life, death and resurrection of Jesus mean for us.
Living, He loved me; dying, He saved me;
Buried, He carried my sins far away;
Rising, He justified freely, forever;
One day He’s coming: O glorious day!
J. Wilbur Chapman (1910)
References:
[1]
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Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © the Author
