COMMUNION
ON THE MOON
I presume that most of you are aware of this
story.
However, it is certainly worth repeating. It's
awesome!
Communion on the Moon: July 20, 1969
(This is an article by
Eric Metaxas)
Forty-three years ago 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'm talking
about the fact that Buzz Aldrin took communion on the surface of
the moon. Some months after his return, he wrote about it in
Guideposts magazine.And a few
years ago I had the privilege of meeting him myself.
I asked him about it and he confirmed the story to me, and I
wrote about in my book Everything You Always Wanted to Know
About God (But Were Afraid to Ask).
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, and he
asked his minister to help him. And so the minister consecrated a
communion wafer and a small vial of communion wine.
And Buzz Aldrin took them with him out of the Earth's orbit and on to the
surface of the moon.
He and Armstrong had only been on the lunar surface for a few
minutes when Aldrin made the following public statement:
"This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to
ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to
pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours
and to give thanks in his or her own way." He then ended radio
communication and there, on the silent surface of the moon, 250,000
miles from home, he read a verse from the Gospel of John, and he
took communion. 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 Chris tmas. 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's interesting to think that some of the first
words spoken on the moon were the words of Jesus Chris t, 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."
How many of you knew this? Too bad this type news
doesn't travel as fast as the bad does...share it if you've felt God's
love.
.AOLWebSuite .AOLPicturesFullSizeLink { height: 1px; width: 1px; overflow: hidden; } .AOLWebSuite a {color:blue; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer} .AOLWebSuite a.hsSig {cursor: default}
ON THE MOON
I presume that most of you are aware of this
story.
However, it is certainly worth repeating. It's
awesome!
Communion on the Moon: July 20, 1969
(This is an article by
Eric Metaxas)
Forty-three years ago 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'm talking
about the fact that Buzz Aldrin took communion on the surface of
the moon. Some months after his return, he wrote about it in
Guideposts magazine.And a few
years ago I had the privilege of meeting him myself.
I asked him about it and he confirmed the story to me, and I
wrote about in my book Everything You Always Wanted to Know
About God (But Were Afraid to Ask).
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, and he
asked his minister to help him. And so the minister consecrated a
communion wafer and a small vial of communion wine.
And Buzz Aldrin took them with him out of the Earth's orbit and on to the
surface of the moon.
He and Armstrong had only been on the lunar surface for a few
minutes when Aldrin made the following public statement:
"This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to
ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to
pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours
and to give thanks in his or her own way." He then ended radio
communication and there, on the silent surface of the moon, 250,000
miles from home, he read a verse from the Gospel of John, and he
took communion. 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 Chris tmas. 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's interesting to think that some of the first
words spoken on the moon were the words of Jesus Chris t, 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."
How many of you knew this? Too bad this type news
doesn't travel as fast as the bad does...share it if you've felt God's
love.
.AOLWebSuite .AOLPicturesFullSizeLink { height: 1px; width: 1px; overflow: hidden; } .AOLWebSuite a {color:blue; text-decoration: underline; cursor: pointer} .AOLWebSuite a.hsSig {cursor: default}