‘When is Easter this year?’ Most folks aren’t sure when Easter falls. Why? Because it’s a movable feast. Easter moves around? We celebrate it every year; why isn’t it at the same time every year? Christmas is always on December 25. No one changes that. Why doesn’t Easter fall on the same day annually? Surprise: Easter doesn’t always fall in the same month. It’s a movable feast. Christmas doesn’t get moved around; so, why Easter?

Some years Easter falls in March; others, it can fall at the end of April. How Easter is decided is actually a simple formula.

The skinny on Easter? It’s always been figured out using the lunar calendar, the 28-day cycle of the moon, and the moon’s relationship to the first day of Spring. In 325 CE, a group of religious folks got together “to standardize the formula” calculating Easter’s date.

Here’s how to figure out the date:

1) Find the first day of Spring – around March 21;

2) Find the first full moon following that first day of Spring;

3) The next Sunday after that first full moon … will always be Easter. Every time and always. Easter can be in late March, or even in late April; it depends on when that first full moon falls, right after the first day of Spring.

It’s that simple. That’s why Easter‘s called ‘a movable feast.’

Folks of faith who observe Easter are reflecting on and celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, the week of Passover that Jesus’ family celebrated, and the joyous Easter traditions and biblical prophecies of the early Church. Others celebrate Easter with themes of joy, renewal, and hope.

Sometimes our kids hunt for Easter eggs in snow piles of late March; sometimes among April’s daffodils and tulips. Symbols of new life abound: brightly colored eggs, crocuses, daffodils, and tulips popping up through old, icy snow; cheery blossoms peeking out of rock walls.

Farewell to winter’s chill to welcome milder days ahead. Religiously inclined or not, we celebrate promising new life, warmer temperatures, and sunnier days.

Hallelujah and Amen.