"In The Beginning…” From 240,000 Miles Away (Apollo 8, 1968)

On Christmas Eve, 1968, the world gathered around their televisions at one of the most turbulent times in American history. The Vietnam War raged. Cities burned from riots. Hearts were heavy with fear and division. But on that night, three astronauts—Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders—became the first human beings to orbit the moon. As their camera panned the surface of that gray, lifeless world, Earth rose in the background like a fragile blue jewel. Half a billion people watched in silence.

Then came something nobody expected. The astronauts opened their broadcast with these words, spoken into the cold emptiness of space: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” Genesis… read from lunar orbit… on Christmas Eve.

Anders later said, “We came all this way to discover the moon, and the most important thing we discovered was the earth.” But millions of believers worldwide heard something deeper: the glory of God shining into a weary world, reminding us that the Creator’s wisdom and power hold all things together—even when the world feels like it’s unraveling.

Christmas does that. It breaks into fear with peace, confusion with wisdom, and weakness with divine strength.