Fifty years ago, on July 20th 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin became the first people to walk on the moon. Amongst all that is recalled, one act tends to be overlooked. After landing on the Moon’s Sea of Tranquillity, Aldrin celebrated communion. He marked the momentous occasion with an act of thanksgiving after silently reading scripture he had written on a small card; 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.

   On earth, a few kilometres down the road from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, a crowd of people gathered at what has become known as the Church of the Astronauts, to take communion at the same time; a celebration that has become an annual tradition called Lunar Sunday Communion Sunday.

   Colossians 1 gives us an image of Christ as the cosmic Christ. Everything created falls within his domain, we are assured:

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together . Not that Paul uses the word cosmos, unlike John: The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him (1:9,10). When cosmos is used in the N.T. it mainly refers to our world; in John cosmos also refers to those human beings who are at odds with Jesus and God (1:10; 7:7; 15:18–19). Obviously talking of a cosmic Christ uses a modern scientific understanding of cosmos.

   So when John 3:16 tells us that God so loved the cosmos, have we the right to expand that love from our world to include the whole vast creation that science has revealed to us? Is it appropriate to celebrate God’s love on the moon; or perhaps in some future time, on Mars?  How big is our God, and how vast is God’s love?

Next time you gaze at the stars, ponder on that!                                                                              Louis van Laar