In the winter of 1968, a historic event took place that sent excitement throughout the entire world as few events had ever done before. The spaceship Apollo 8 made the first voyage from our planet to the moon. Commander Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders became the first men to orbit the moon. The complete fascination of our globe was captured by this mission. It was estimated that over one billion people would be watching them. These three men were granted the extraordinary privilege of being the first humans to view the moon from a window away.
Early in the morning of December 21, 1968, the blastoff took place from Cape Kennedy with flawless perfection. Commander Borman was well aware of the significance of this first historic flight, the mammoth audience that would have their eyes riveted to their T.V. sets, and the incredible opportunity the Apollo 8 crew had to do something special. Borman had thought long and hard on what his crew might prepare to say to a world that would be eagerly watching them. Finally, a suggestion was made to read the creation story. The rest is history. While orbiting the moon, with the earth behind them and the entire universe before them, over one billion people began to hear the opening ten verses from Genesis.
I can imagine the excitement, the drama and the impact that must have been generated as the following words came into the ears of those firsthand hearers from almost 250,000 miles away: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” As the rest of the verses were read one could not help but stand in awe at this remarkable technological accomplishment, of man and nature rendezvousing in a never-before-journeyed-to corridor of our galaxy. It is only fitting that the creation story was read on man’s first flight to the moon. God’s Word has now not only been circulated throughout this world but to other world as well.
Again, whenever the Bible is read, controversy is bound to follow. This time, however, when all the returns were in, the Bible won by a landslide. In the words of Frank Borman: “One woman in particular began a campaign to prohibit astronauts from expressing their views in this way. She did have a certain following, because we received 34 letters of complaint. But it is interesting that there were almost 100,000 other letters from people who found the Genesis reading very meaningful indeed.”[1] If a simple verse can generate such excitement, imagine what the entire Bible can do!
[1] Col. Frank Borman, “Message to Earth,” The Guideposts Treasury of Faith (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1980), p. 405.