On March 23rd it will be Easter and folks at Smith Mountain Lake are gearing up for spring break, visits from relatives and inspirational church activities. Wait a minute, March 23rd? Isn’t Easter usually in April? And with that question follows another interesting and unusual holiday tidbit.

As you may know, Easter is always the first Sunday after the 1st full moon following the Spring Equinox (the moment which occurs twice yearly around March 20th and Sept. 23rd when the center of the sun is directly above Earths equator). This dating of Easter is based on the Hebrew lunar calendar which was used to identify Passover and other Jewish Holy Days. This is why it does not occur on the same day each year on our calendar.

The earliest Easter can be in any given year is March 22nd which is pretty rare. The last time that happened was in 1818 and it will not happen again until 2285. This year is the earliest any human living at the moment will see Easter in his or her lifetime. The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 ( 220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you’re 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).

How cool to know we are getting ready to celebrate the life, death and resurrection of the One and Only Savior of the world, on a once in a lifetime date!!