Planning Sacred Space Exploration
For several weeks before the Apollo 11 launch in July 1969, my pastor Dean Woodruff and I had been struggling to find the right way to mark humanity's first lunar landing. We wanted to express that what we were doing transcended electronics and computers and rockets - that it was part of something larger, something sacred.
I wondered if it might be possible to take communion on the moon, symbolizing that God was revealing Himself there too, as man reached out into the universe. For there are many of us in the NASA program who trust that what we are doing is part of God's eternal plan for man.
So I brought with me a small communion kit: a tiny chalice, a small portion of bread, and a vial of wine, all consecrated by my pastor at Webster Presbyterian Church in Houston.
Taking Communion on the Moon
On July 20, 1969, after Neil Armstrong and I touched down in the Sea of Tranquility, we had a few moments before our scheduled moonwalk. I radioed to Houston: "I would 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."
Then I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup. It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements.
A Silent Sacred Moment
I read silently from a small card I had written out, the words of Jesus from John 15:5: "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me."
I had wanted to broadcast this reading to the world, but NASA had requested I keep it private. A lawsuit by atheist activist over the Apollo 8 crew reading Genesis on Christmas Day had made the space agency nervous about religious content.
So there, on the surface of another world, I ate the body and drank the blood of my Savior in silence. It was perhaps the most private communion I have ever taken. Yet it was profoundly meaningful - acknowledging that even at the farthest reaches of human exploration, we are never beyond God's presence.
God's Presence Throughout the Universe
Webster Presbyterian Church still celebrates Lunar Communion Sunday every year, on the Sunday closest to July 20. I think of that little chalice in the lunar dust, and I am reminded that wherever humanity ventures, we carry both our faith and our need for God with us.
