COMMUNION ON THE MOON

COMMUNION ON THE MOON I didn’t know this, but it’s awesome! 43 years ago…guess what happened… many have not heard of this                 before . . . 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                 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’s 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.” 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.