Communion on the Moon: July 20, 1969
Dear Champions,The short excerpt is by Eric Metaxas and was gotten from his blog found at http://www.ericmetaxas.com/ (click there at the July 19 posting if you want more), and the Scripture is in the passage.
Forty years ago on July 20, 1969 two human beings changed history by walking on the surface of the moon. But what happened before Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong exited the Lunar Module is perhaps even more amazing, if only because so few people know about it.
I am talking about the fact that Buzz Aldrin took communion on the surface of the moon. The background to the story is that Aldrin was an elder at his Presbyterian Church in Texas during this period in his life, and knowing that he would soon be doing something unprecedented in human history, he felt he should mark the occasion somehow. Here is his own account of what happened:
In the radio blackout, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing. I had intended to read my communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute [they] had requested that I not do this. NASA was already embroiled in a legal battle with Madelyn Murray O Hare, the celebrated opponent of religion, over the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas. I agreed reluctantly. …I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements.
And of course, it is interesting to think that some of the first words spoken on the moon were the words of Jesus Christ, who made the Earth and the moon and Who, in the immortal words of Dante, is Himself the Love that moves the Sun and other stars.
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
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