WHEN you are born you are given a birth certificate. When you die you get a death certificate. When you’re resurrected after being dead I’d assume you’d get a new birth certificate, or an extra date added onto your original one.

Your birthday doesn’t change each year, your wedding anniversary, the number of days in March, St George’s Day, and New Year does not change.

I really cannot fathom why Easter changes every year.

As a Christian festival, celebrating the last supper on Maundy Thursday, the day Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, and the day he rose from the grave on Easter Sunday, I don’t understand how these dates are not fixed in history like Christmas Day is.

Jesus was born on one day, December 25, and presumably he died on one day and it did not depend on the lunar activity during that year.

From researching what day the son of God potentially died, I found that apparently he was around 33 years old when he was crucified on the day before Jewish Passover, and because he was born in 3-4BC, the date would have occurred in 30AD.

So why can we not determine a date to set in stone like we can his birthday?

Easter Sunday can fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25 with Eastern Orthodox churches celebrating Easter on a different day to Western churches.

I found two explanations – the short answer is because the early church fathers wished to keep the observance of Easter in correlation to Passover, which is based on solar and lunar cycles with the dates shifting year to year, and the long answer is in western Christianity, Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the Paschal full moon, which was the same moon that saw Jesus’s crucifixion. This particular moon and the date of the actual full moon has dates ranging from March 21 to April 18, so as a result, Easter dates can range from March 22 through April 25 in Western Christianity.

This still doesn’t solve a christened person’s question, who has not followed the religion but has been open to its celebrations and interpretations of the ten commandments, of why is there no defining date for a huge occasion like the death of Christianity’s saviour?

This man died for our sins, was nailed to a cross and left to die in a painful execution to try to discourage his followers. I think I’d remember that date for the rest of my life if it was that important to the teachings I based my life on.

But because I’m not a strict Christian and am open to other religious teachings and practices, all I can say is at least Easter is set for a Friday to Sunday celebration every year, and doesn’t change to a Tuesday to Thursday occasion.