Posted on 07/20/2019 3:29:28 PM PDT by ReformationFan
This Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people in history to walk on the Moon. But it’s also the anniversary of the a lesser known event—the first celebration of the Lord’s Supper on the Moon.
Here’s are nine things you should know about the first communion service on the Moon.
1. In 1969, Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. was an elder at Webster Presbyterian Church, a congregation just outside of Houston, Texas. He told the lead pastor of his church, Dean Woodruff, that he had “been struggling to find the right symbol for the first lunar landing.” “We wanted to express our feeling that what man was doing in this mission transcended electronics and computers and rockets,” Aldrin told Guideposts magazine in 1970. “One of the principal symbols,” Woodruff said, “is that God reveals himself in the common elements of everyday life.” Traditionally, these elements are bread and wine—common foods in Bible days and typical products of man’s labor.
2. Aldrin got the idea for the communion ceremony while at Cape Kennedy working with the “sophisticated tools of the space effort.” “It occurred to me that these tools were the typical elements of life today,” Aldrin said. “I wondered if it might be possible to take communion on the moon, symbolizing the thought 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 do trust that what we are doing is part of God’s eternal plan for man.”
3. The communion bread was carried in a plastic packet, the way regular inflight food is wrapped. Because there was just enough gravity on the moon for liquid to pour, Aldrin wanted to pour the wine into a chalice from his church. Woodruff had presented him a silver cup that was small and light enough that it could be carried in the astronaut’s personal-preference kit.
4. Aldrin had originally planned to share the event with the world over the radio. But the atheist activist Madalyn Murray O’Hair had recently sued NASA after Apollo 8 astronauts read the Book of Genesis during a broadcast made on Christmas Day 1968, when they became the first humans to orbit the moon. O’Hair’s case claiming that the astronauts had violated the constitutional separation between church and state was dismissed. Yet NASA was still wary of causing more controversy. Aldrin says his fellow astronaut Deke Slayton, who ran the Apollo 11 flight crew operations, told him to tone down his pre-communion message. “Go ahead and have communion, but keep your comments more general,” Slayton advised.
5. After unpacking the elements from their flight packets and laying them on a small table in front of the abort guidance system computer, Aldrin radioed back to NASA with this message:
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 invite each person listening, 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.
6. Before taking communion, Aldrin read from John 15:5, which he had handwritten on a scrap of paper—”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.”
7. After radioing in his message and reading the Scripture verse, Aldrin partook of the Supper. Fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong looked on quietly but did not participate. “I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me,” Aldrin says. “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.” After taking the elements, Aldrin says he “sensed especially strongly my unity with our church back home, and with the church everywhere.”
8. Every year, since the moon landing, the Webster Presbyterian Church of Houston, Texas, commemorates Aldrin’s moon communion service. “It’s kind of a tradition around here,” Gene Fisseler said in 1999. “It’s still church. It’s not about the moon. It’s not about the astronauts. It’s still about church. But we feel like it’s an important tradition here in this church.”
9. The communion ceremony was dramatized in an episode of From the Earth to the Moon, a 12-part HBO television miniseries from 1998. Buzz Aldrin was played by actor Bryan Cranston.
Didn’t you know? Jesus instituted a new covenant!
And yet NONE of these things are WRITTEN in the NT.
No WONDER there is such a 'difference of OPINION' about it all!
All I want to do is to see the rules.
Am I asking too much?
So you want proof so simple even satan can know it! ... Are you sure ‘bout that, Elsie? Ever read Hebrews and Romans? But before you do, read John chapter 13 and into 14. It is JESUS who establishes the truth of the coming Rapture.
1 Corinthians 11:25
In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
We KNOW where Rome gets IT's rules; where do we??
Galatians 4: 8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
Stay away from rituals served up in works based orgs.
Yes; I am.
Read my #102 again.
PROTs have generated RULES for Communion; just as Catholics have.
Many are getting indignant with me for even bringing the subject up!
I ask again:
What went on between the words of Jesus in the Gospels about the 'Last Supper' and what Paul wrote about later?
The first act of the Apostles is to draw lots to select from only two who they deemed suitable to be one of the twelve to replace Judas. This they did prior to the descending of the Holy Spirit upon them (Jesus chose the twelfth, Saul of Tarsus/Paul) Please note that Luke relates the emptiness of that gesture when he states, Acts 2:14" Then Peter stood up among the eleven apostles and raised his voice to address them."
On the Day of Pentecost Peter preached a most powerful sermon by empowerment from The Holy Spirit. And the listeners asked: 'They asked Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” ' [Contrast this scene and their same question to the scene in John 6! Here believers ask, in John 6 seekers after signs and wonders asked. Notice if you will the stark difference in answers. GOD responds to believers seeking by giving them non-metaphorical reality, but to seekers after signs who are not believers God spoke in metaphor of the spiritual reality misunderstood by carnal-minded listeners as the physical.]
And begins the answer of the Grace of God in Christ Jesus: Acts 2:38 Peter answered them, “Every one of you must repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus the Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the Holy Spirit as a gift". Simplicity at its finest. Just repent and be baptized in faith to the efficacy of Messiah's work for them, not by them.
And more than 3000 souls were born from above that day. Then these believers and many more added ... Acts 2:42 "The believers continued to devote themselves to what the apostles were teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to times of prayer." The 'breaking of bread refers to the communion of believers faithfully keeping the Remembrance Jesus instituted. There are no fancy, priest directed add-ons. The only rule is of faith. Doing the ritual in faith with the fellow members of The Body of Christ requires no special items or special priesthood. All these generated rules are 'traditions made up by men.' These add-ons add nothing to the Remembrance. You can do the Remembrance at your dinner table with your family, no priest required, no Bishop needed, no special wafers and wine enhancements.
The Covenant Jesus established is affirmed by the believer in the Remembrance of what He accomplished for them at Calvary, affirmed as in force forever more by the resurrection form the grave. There is ONLY one rule, if you will: Believe in Him as Savior and Lord, the One Whom God sent for your ‘born-again-ship’. Jesus established the Covenant. Believers affirm their faith in His Covenant to them by doing the Remembrance.
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