The Last Supper on the Moonናሙና

Go, No Go

Apollo 11 performed a crewed lunar landing in July 1969. Three hours and twenty-two minutes after launch, while hurtling away from earth with Michael Collins at the helm, the command and service module separated from the third stage of the Saturn V rocket, spun around and docked nose to nose with the lunar module, whose four-panel shroud peeled away like silver petals of a flower. Michael pulled the lunar module out of the compartment where it had been stored and for three days flew two ships, merged into one Apollo spacecraft, to the moon.

They gradually slowed down from the escape velocity of 25,000 miles per hour to a tenth of that. At the halfway point between the earth and the moon, they came under the moon’s gravitational pull and began to speed up again.

One hundred hours later, the Apollo 11 crew began the complicated and risky process of leaving Michael and the CSM behind. Their mission was to cover the sixty miles from where they were orbiting the moon down to the lunar surface in the spidery ball of gold and grey that was the LM. Buzz and Neil undocked from Columbia. They performed a quick visual inspection and headed off. From the window in Columbia, Michael watched them go. Eagle looked far more like a robotic tarantula than a bird of prey, but it was on its way.

One hour and twenty minutes later, after Eagle had flown around the moon and behind it again, Neil and Buzz received permission to begin the braking burn for the descent orbit initiation. The final ignition for the twelve-minute powered descent to the moon began an hour later.

This was it. Permission to land had to be relayed from Houston through Michael in the ship they had just left. If they needed to abort, now was the time. Go? No go?

Jesus had such an option. Twelve legions of angels at the ready. All he had to do was say the word, and it would all go away. You can be sure the devil was playing the same mind games he had in the temptation that preceded Jesus’ ministry as Christ reached the halfway point of the crucifixion and spoke for the fourth time.

“My God, My God why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46 NKJV)

This moment of Jesus’ time on the cross is also the crescendo. The climax. It’s by far the most dramatic, forceful, and intense part of his death. When the darkness hit and the sin was laid on him, he cried out in pain. If ever there was going to be a moment to abort, this would have been it.

When the moment finally came, Jesus proceeded according to the plan. He refused to abort. He stayed on the cross, and the sin of the world transferred onto him. This was when he cried out in pain and despair: “My God, My God. Why have You forsaken Me?”

Allow the sickening feeling of regret and despair and utter dread to sink in as you imagine Jesus completely abandoned and alone, experiencing the unbridled wrath poured out for sins he didn’t commit. Two thousand years before this happened, near this exact spot, God tested Abraham by asking him to offer up his son, Isaac. When Abraham was willing, God stopped him and, in essence, said, “Don’t harm your son; I will provide myself for a sacrifice” (Gen. 22:12–13). On this day, that promise was kept.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son ... and they were separated.

It’s not right.

Never in all of infinity had the dance of the Trinity—the love and beauty of community, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—been broken. But in this moment, Jesus was forsaken. Rejected. Abandoned. So you will never be.

Jesus was okay laying His life down on the cross, completely forsaken, because he knew in so doing he would be able to take back his life from the grave and with it ours as well. Jesus didn’t appease an angry Father by dying for us. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit conspired to do something that would bring sadness to them all because it was the only way to save you and me.

This is love.

This is the gospel. Out of Jesus’ death comes enough love for the rest of your life. Anytime you are tempted to doubt him, just remember the cross!

Respond

Describe a time when you felt alone, and Jesus showed up to comfort you.

Write a short letter to Jesus expressing your love and gratitude for the cross.

Prayer

Father, lead me to someone today who needs to know about the sacrifice Jesus paid for each of us.