Easter
In the Western church, it is Easter Weekend and March 31st is one of the earliest dates on which Easter can land, as set forth by the first ecumenical council of the church, called the Council of Nicaea, which met in Turkey in 325 CE.
Let’s start there. Turkey, 325 CE. According to the history books, over 300 Bishops attended (with entourages), some coming from as far away as Spain. I try and fathom the journey. We are coping with mud season here, where it is hard enough to get out of the driveway, which is soft, with a few inches of slush. The truck must use four-wheel drive. Travel may have been easier in 325, relying on beasts of some sort—camel, horse, oxen—for which hill and dale (and mud) posed no special problem. There were good Roman roads. But it took time. I suppose on arrival attendees had the satisfaction of knowing they could unpack and genuinely recover from the arduous journey given a program that would last from May through July. It is an example of how sped-up our lives are thousands of years later that until I started traveling with my wife, I never thought of using hotel room bureau drawers. I lived out of the case. I flew in. I flew out.
The Council convened thanks to Emperor Constantine who determined, after the Edict of Milan in 313 CE had relaxed restrictions on all religions, that the Christian sect was a mishmash of beliefs and practices. One does not need to be an emperor to appreciate the sort of chaos that can result from growing rivalries between religious groups. You are thinking we could use Constantine now but be grateful he did what he did in 325. He called the meeting.
(Let me pause to say I am pretty confident you have not looked up any of this recently. It seems a good time to do it, now, so allow me.)
The Council of Nicaea did several things. The critical outcomes were a creed (the Nicene Creed) and a decision about Easter, i.e., when, because at that point Easter was being celebrated at different times around the empire. It was early days in the history of the church, but, still, a couple of hundred years had passed. Behaviors were in danger of becoming fully entrenched.
Many in the world, most particularly, in this case, the Jewish community, relied on a lunar calendar to order their feast days and worship. Passover, to which the story of Christ’s passion and resurrection are joined, was, as it remains, determined in relation to the Spring Equinox. It was the obvious place for the bishops to begin, with the outcome that Easter would be on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring Equinox.
Except it is so much more complicated given the precise timing of an equinox and differences between Gregorian and Julian calendars where seconds, leading to days, go missing over the millennia. If you want to take a merry ride into the question, I recommend this from Notre Dame. At some point, you may just throw up your hands and be glad other people are working on it.
Anyway, March 31st is one of the earliest dates that Easter can arrive. The earliest is March 22nd, which hasn’t happened since 1818 and is not going to happen again until 2285! The last time Easter landed on the 31st was 2013. Before that, 2002. About every ten years since the dawn of the 21st century. After this weekend, however, Easter will not reappear on the 31st until 2086. I must delight in thinking about my grandchildren around the dinner table with their grandchildren on that occasion.
If you worship God, it is good to have a long view, and along the way, take baby steps. He said to Moses and Aaron (Exodus, Chap. 12, 1-6), “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you,” going on to dictate the ritual of Passover, taking a lamb on the tenth day, slaughtering it on the fourteenth day. In this way you stay on the path, you follow the trail markers. Every seven days, you stop and rest. Left foot, right foot, left foot.
Even so, it is devilishly difficult (no pun). Our calendars do not agree. The orbits of our celestial bodies are all elliptical! Time shifts. Our memories are wiped away. When it comes down to it, nothing unseen fits comfortably into the containers of what is seen. Time is one of those things. And surely you know, Easter is another.
Fortunately, there was a meeting and when it was over everyone went home, leaving a trail behind them for us to follow, left foot, right foot, left foot.
Happy Easter!
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