Friday Night Theology

One Small Step

23 July 2009

Forty years ago this week the first man took his first step on the moon after an intense battle for political and cultural ascendancy between the Americans and the Soviets. Sputnik the satellite, Laika the dog, and Yuri Gagarin the astronaut had all been victories for "the Russians". But it was a determined President Kennedy with a sparkle in his eye and the earth at his feet who predicted that America would claim the rights to the first piece of stellar real estate. In a famous speech given two years before his assassination he said: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

Seven years later, on Christmas Eve 1968, the first manned mission to the moon was launched. The astronauts gazed beyond the barren moonscape at the beauty and colour of the earth rising. As they saw from a distance the separations of day and night and of land and water described in Genesis 1, they were inspired to read from the Bible the account of God's creation of the earth to those listening back home.

Six months afterwards, Apollo 11 touched down and Neil Armstrong made a footprint in moondust with the immortalized words: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." It was a milestone of technological achievement. But it was also a milestone in our understanding of our responsibility for our planet. Jonathan Porrit recounts that he was so deeply moved by watching the images of the earth from space that he founded later that same year the organisation Friends of the Earth. From that one small footstep we have all begun to consider our own eco footprint as we grasp the fragility of our lonely planet isolated in vast space.

But forty years later, the promises of technological mastery and environmental control are no closer to reality, despite momentous advances in both fields. The optimism of the 1960's with its emphases on love, peace and hope has faded away, and we are left with nervousness about what the future may hold.  Cyber-terrorism, melting ice-caps, global pandemics and weapons of mass destruction pose a greater threat to the planet than ever before, it seems.

Perhaps it is time to help our world reconsider another giant leap for mankind, that happened 2000 years ago when the God who created the cosmos took his first steps onto our good earth. He came to bring peace that can transform our lives, our nations, our environment and our planet.  It is at the cross that Jesus dealt with the damage we have wreaked and it takes just one small step on our part to admit our complicity and turn to God for forgiveness and hope. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon that night forty years ago knew that. The first meal on the moon was the symbolic morsels of bread and wine he ate in gratitude to his God and Saviour. The astronauts that read their Bibles on earthrise nearly landed themselves in a lot of trouble for preaching from space; perhaps their boldness at using the opportunity of their high position to preach the servant king gives us an example to take a small step to share the gospel message whenever we get the chance.

Krish Kandiah, Executive Director: Churches in Mission, Evangelical Alliance

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