It happened on Christmas Eve, 48 years ago. Three men took turns reading from the first 10 verses of the Book of Genesis. They were nearly 250,000 miles away from Bethlehem, but since it was the night before Christmas, and there was no chimney from which to hang their stockings, the three astronauts inside the Apollo 8 capsule orbiting the moon thought it would be appropriate. So as Jim Lovell, Frank Borman and Bill Anders looked at the faraway Earth through the small window of the spacecraft, they read the verses: “In the beginning, God made the heavens and the Earth.”
Their distant-sounding voices from far beyond our atmosphere were broadcast live to the whole planet that night over radio and television. It was one of those moments that brought the world together, that helped us to see our common humanity…
~ Eric Metaxas, from Christmas Eve in Space and Communion on the Moon (wsj.com, Dec, 24, 2016)
Photo: Earth (Great Lakes). Canadian Space Agency/Chris Hadfield via Space.com
Live & Learn 
…to be truly awed and humbled
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Yes…full stop.
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No words….
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Me too Lori. Me too…
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Reblogged this on A Simple, Village Undertaker and commented:
I do not remember this, but am saddened to realize that it would never happen today. I can always count on David to find gems like this.
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It saddens me too Ray…How far we’ve come in some ways, in others, rocketing backwards…
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It sticks with me all these years. It was a profoundly moving moment.
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It was Doug. And it feels like yesterday.
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wow – chills.
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I had same reaction Beth. Same.
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Wow, I ddin’t know about this, impact-ful phenomenal…”Their distant-sounding voices from far beyond our atmosphere were broadcast live to the whole planet that night over radio and television. It was one of those moments that brought the world together, that helped us to see our common humanity…” and this happened during the height of the Vietnam War, and I wonder how many service people listened to this over Armed Forces Radio and wished they were home in America, with their families, listening….and I hope that for some time that Christmas Eve, years ago that the resonating words of God beaming down all across earth did bring peace, comfort, unity and reverent awe…and I think of how few people have spent Christmas Eve, out of this world floating in a tin can? think of those people too, in the “International” Space Station, overhead aloft among the heavenly bodies…and I like to think that those radio signals are still on loop, circulating among the stars, waiting to be discovered and heard by a generation, perhaps not yet born…for each breath is a gift and there is hope as we move forward…
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Smiling at “radio signals still on loop circling the stars.” What a thought.
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and I think about how the words of God are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow…
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the next day, the next week…
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I was 11 years old and remember this. I did not remember it was Christmas Eve but I remember those voices over the radio. We all sat and listened. It felt like we were in church.
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Wonderful. Thank you for sharing
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