Don't forget the moon

I've been following with interest the conversation between Christian leaders about fixing the date of Easter to a particular day in the calendar—like the second or third Sunday in April. Back in January, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, voiced his support for the idea, joining leaders of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Welby was even so bold as to suggest that the date of Easter could be fixed in as few as five or ten years, saying, "School holidays and so on are all fixed—it affects almost everything you do in the spring and summer. I would love to see it before I retire."

I am, without question, opposed to the idea. But I've really wrestled with it. Am I opposed to it simply because I don't like change? That's a real possibility. When it comes to traditions, I like trying something new, but I need to know that when the experiment is over we'll return back to business as usual. This would be, after all, the biggest thing that the several branches of the Christian community have accomplished since the Council of Nicaea in 325. Forget Martin Luther. Forget iconoclasm. If we can get the Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants to agree on setting the date of Easter, we'd have the first real, substantial agreement since the split over monophysitism. How could anyone—especially me, a parish priest who values deeply the conflicted history of our churches—be opposed to that?

Well, last night, I got my answer. Driving home from dinner with our family, I saw a huge, golden, fully illuminated Passover moon hanging low in the horizon. In that moment, I knew. Seeing that moon awakened a sense of drama and anticipation in my heart. I changed course. Instead of going home, I had to drive down to the river to see it. I knew the moon was rising quickly and that with every passing minute the disc would shrink in my perspective, so I raced down past the empty water park, past the still-illuminated soccer fields, down to the end of the road. I got out of my car and ran down a trail to a point that stuck out into the river, where I could look up and see that moon. There it was. An immutable, unavoidable, incontrovertible call to Holy Week.