Life in Space?: A reminder of the warmth of Christ

So bear with me—This week I take you guys down a rabbit hole my mind went on while I was watching a sermon by VOUS Church! The sermon was on the book of Revelations, but they introduced it with a quote from William Shatner’s memoir on his trip to space. My revelation has nothing to do with the sermon but is revelation nonetheless!

He says:

We got out of our harnesses and began to float around. The other folks went straight into somersaults and enjoying all the effects of weightlessness. I wanted no part in that. I wanted, needed to get to the window as quickly as possible to see what was out there.

I looked down and I could see the hole that our spaceship had punched in the thin, blue-tinged layer of oxygen around Earth. It was as if there was a wake trailing behind where we had just been, and just as soon as I’d noticed it, it disappeared.

I continued my self-guided tour and turned my head to face the other direction, to stare into space. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely… all of that has thrilled me for years… but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . all I saw was death.

I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her.

Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong.

I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.

It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.

As I heard this, it surprised me. Usually, when we hear about space travel it’s synonymous with wonder. This was not his experience, and apparently many others as I found. It made me think. I reimagined his experience, looking from the blue life of earth to turn his head, expectant, to come face to face with an end. An end to the wonder, the whimsy, a belief he held: that he would find some type of enlightenment or life outside of that which he already knew. There was nothing there. Nothing for him. It was not nurturing nor inviting—in fact, the lack of life there felt deadly. There was nowhere for him. It was death.

This stark contrast between the coldness of space and the warm immensity of earth spoke so profoundly. I just felt the earth come into focus—its comfort, love, warmth, refreshment (imagine brown Sherpa). In contrast to space I realized it truly was an inviting oasis, a home. While our world isn’t perfect, despite the day to day ups and downs—-our earth sustains life. It was built to sustain life. It produces and protects life. Every function and facet is set perfectly to sustain our lives.

His account brought a heavy visual to mind. To risk over echoing my point, think about how within space the life giving quality of earth was highlighted and magnified. It felt like a secret was written in the fabric of the universe.

I saw Jesus as the earth, as life. It’s almost as if the earth’s sole unmatched perfection at sustaining life mirrors a Creator who is a singular, unmatched and perfect source of life as well. There is one place we find life in the universe—that is earth. Earth to reflect the truth that there is one whole source of life—Jesus our Creator. What if it’s all a reflection of the Gospel—He is the only way. Nothing can come close to Him. Nothing is built to sustain us the way He is. Nothing offers the abundance of life that Jesus offers. Just like Earth. He is life.

He created earth to be our only sustaining home as a reflection of the truth—He is our only sustaining home—or only source of life in its fullness. Everything else is death, no matter how appealing and captivating it may appear. Up close, it will not sustain life at all. It was never built to. It is not home.

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William Shatner’s conclusion leads him to a greater affection for the earth we live on, but I believe the wonders of the universe tell a greater story than even that.

John 14:6 (NIV) “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Romans 1:20 (AMP) “For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense.”