Communion at the Sea of Tranquility

October 15, 2026

On the night before He died, Jesus prayed for people who did not yet exist. “My prayer is not for them alone,” He said. “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you” (John 17:20-21). He was praying for us. He asked that we would be brought to complete unity, so the world would know that the Father sent Him and loves us. Unity, in this prayer, is not a pleasant extra. It is how the world is supposed to recognize that Jesus is real.

That kind of unity showed up in a strange place on July 20, 1969. Before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the moon, Aldrin asked the world to pause and give thanks. Then he turned off the radio. He was an elder in a Presbyterian church in Texas. His pastor had consecrated a small piece of communion bread and a vial of wine, and Aldrin had carried them to the Sea of Tranquility. In the silence, 250,000 miles from home, he read the words of Jesus, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Then he ate the bread and drank the wine. The first food eaten on the moon, and the first liquid poured there, were the Lord’s Supper. Some of the first words spoken on that ground were the words of Christ. NASA had asked him not to read the passage over the radio. A lawsuit was already underway over the Apollo 8 crew reading Genesis from lunar orbit. So, the meal was private. The unity it pointed to was not.

We struggle with that unity. The country has been pulling apart since the 1960s, and the church has not been immune. People get angry, refuse to forgive, and leave. Jesus did not treat that as a small matter. He said if you are offering a gift at the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave the gift and go be reconciled first (Matthew 5:23-24). He said if we do not forgive others, the Father will not forgive us (Matthew 6:14-15). When Peter asked if seven times was enough, Jesus said seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:21-22). From the cross He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Forgiveness is not a feeling we wait to have. It is an obedience that makes unity possible.

Through the years, I have often struggled with forgiving others. The hardest of all was Jesus’ command, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). I always thought I was a very loving and forgiving person until I read the book, “The Bait of Satan” by John Bevere. He is a no-nonsense author who does not beat around the bush. His premise in the book is that our unwillingness to forgive is satan’s bait to tear Christians and their unity apart. I realized I wasn’t very forgiving. I just wrote people off as stupid, and that solved the problem. It wasn’t my problem. It was theirs. I recommend the book highly if you want to learn how to forgive others.

The enemy wants us fighting one another. God wants us praying for one another. That includes brothers and sisters we will never meet. In many places, pastors and congregations pay a real price for gathering in Jesus’ name. They need our prayers more than they need our opinions. When we pray for them, we practice the oneness Jesus asked for.

The Lord’s Supper is where that prayer becomes visible. We come to one table, from one Lord, with one need for mercy. We cannot share the bread and cup honestly while we refuse to forgive the person in the next pew. Aldrin took that table to the moon because he wanted the biggest moment of his life marked by Christ. We take it in ordinary rooms for the same reason.

Where is unity breaking down in your own life? Who still needs your forgiveness, even if they have not asked well? Who do you need to approach and ask for forgiveness? Who, far from here, needs your prayers this week?

I invite you to come to the table the way Jesus prayed we would come to one another: in love, in forgiveness, and in unity. The Son asked the Father to make us one. When we forgive, the world can see that He was sent, and His name is lifted high. (To learn more about Al Earley or read previous articles, see www.lagrangepres.org. You can purchase my book, My Faith Journal, at Amazon.com, a compilation of 366 articles as a daily devotional. Check out my podcast on YouTube, called “My Faith Journey”).