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| NASA |
Like many of you, I am grateful and relieved at the rescue of the downed airman who fell behind enemy lines this week. He has often been in my prayers.
This happened
at the same time as crew members of Artemis II, Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover,
Mission Specialist 1 Christina Koch, and Mission Specialist 2 Jeremy Hansen hurled
toward the far side of the moon to see what no human has ever seen.
As I’ve
written here before, I’m fascinated with all things space travel. I wanted to
be an astronaut in my early years, but that desire faded as I figured out the
math requirements I’d face which might have made my brain explode— calculus,
differential equations, and linear algebra.
John
Glenn, who inspired my aspirations when he was the first man to orbit the earth
also became the oldest person to go into space. I guess it’s not too late for
me, after all, and maybe they’d have mercy and forget about the math. At seventy-seven,
he flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. He said as he gazed out a
window at earth on that Shuttle, “To look at this kind of creation and not
believe in God is to me impossible. It just strengthens my faith. I wish there
were words to describe what it’s like.”
Those
words echo what we find written by the Psalmist, “The heavens declare the glory
of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth
speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use
no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the
earth, their words to the ends of the world” (Psalm 19:1-4).
Reid
Wiseman, the commander of Artemis II, a decorated Navy fighter pilot was
selected for astronaut training in 2009 and has spent over 170 days in space. He
lost his wife, Carroll, in 2020 and faced raising his children who were young
teenagers at the time. In a moving moment just after the Artemis Mission
surpassed Apollo XIII’s distance record, the crew called for naming a crater on
the moon for Reid’s wife, Carroll.
As the
crew navigated the far side of the moon yesterday, the world watched. During
that silence when they lost contact and it was just them, the heavens, and God,
there were those on board who knew that even then God was with them. In an
interview last year with The Times, Wiseman described this time as “almost
… heavenly. You’re alone, four of you, totally blocked from planet Earth by the
moon and the only thing on the other side is deep space.” He also called for the
world to pray for their safe return as they waited for the “acquisition signal.”
Just
before they lost contact yesterday, Victor Glover, the pilot delivered a
message of love and paraphrased Matthew 22:37-39, “’Love God with all that you
are’ and ‘to love your neighbor as yourself.’ We’re still going to feel your
love from Earth. And to all of you down there on Earth and around Earth, we
love you from the moon.”
Glover, a Naval
aviator has amassed more than 3,500 hours in over forty different planes including
twenty-four combat missions. He was selected as an astronaut candidate in 2013
and has 172 days in space, which includes several space walks at the International
Space Station.
In an
interview in 2023 with The Christian Chronicle on his faith, Glover also
speaks of prayer, “My career is fed by my faith, and you know, anytime I do
something that’s pretty risky I pray—before I fly, every time I fly. I fly
airplanes a few times a week. Definitely when you go sit on top of a rocket ship.
In the military, there’s a saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. There
aren’t any on top of rockets, either …”
Glover,
while on the space station, took communion in space. Of that experience he
said, “The beauty of communion is that when we take this, we’re all together in
God’s presence, thinking about the sacrifice that was made.”
The
Psalmist again, “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in
the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on
the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand
will hold me fast” (Psalm 139:8-10).
As the astronauts
drew closer to the moon, they experienced what is called back at mission
control in Houston, “moon joy.” I wonder if another word for it might be “wonder.”
Something
I don’t have to wonder about is that whether you’re on a mountain top in the
middle East, the far side of the sea, or
the far side of the moon, God is there.
Please join me in praying for the safe return of the Artemis II crew.