It’s fifty years ago since man first walked on the moon. On 20 July, 1969, “Buzz” Aldrin and Neil Armstrong (I’m not related) stepped onto the moon, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.

In 1970, Aldrin wrote an article in which he said this, “The very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements”. Aldrin talked over “the right symbol” he could bring with him with the pastor of the church he attended near Houston, Texas. Just weeks before the scheduled launch, Aldrin had an idea: He could conduct a simple communion service in the lunar module.

Aldrin believed the gesture would symbolise, “the thought that God was revealing Himself there too, as man reached out into the universe”.

When Armstrong and Aldrin landed the Eagle lunar module on the moon the two men spent some hours recovering from their space flight. The plan was to have a meal before they stepped on the surface of the moon. For Aldrin, it was time for Holy Communion. “Houston, this is Eagle. This is the LM Pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his own individual way”, Aldrin said to the army of engineers and scientists listening from Houston. He then took communion while Armstrong (a deist) respectfully observed but did not participate.

Aldrin wrote, “In the radio blackout I opened the little plastic packages which contained bread and wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup”.

When we consider the vastness of the universe, is it not amazing that God became one of us? The psalmist ponders the infinity of God and his interest in us, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them”? (Ps 8:3–4).

The final and compelling evidence of God’s care for us is the sending of his Son. The Great Commission is not what we do, it was the sending of the Son into our world, the Son who describes himself as the bread of life, “Whoever comes to me will never go hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (Jn 6:35).

When we take communion we are feeding on Jesus in our hearts with thanksgiving. For in his death he rendered powerless the reign of sin and in his resurrection he is confirmed as the Lord of heaven and earth. Aldrin’s symbolic gesture of taking communion on the lunar surface is a powerful reminder that Jesus rules over everything and that his dominion knows no end. Indeed, the Lord we worship is not a local deity but he is the one to whom we all will give account.

The universe belongs to Christ Jesus and by faith in him we belong to God.

(Adapted from https://churchleaders.com/news/355585-50-years-ago-man-celebrated-holy-communion-on-the-moon.html)