What CS Lewis Could Teach This Astronaut (and all of us) || SLP649

Astronaut finds God after returning to Earth. Is that really what's happened? I'm not so sure, but here is what Commander Reed Weisman said at the NASA press conference. The only thing I can do is just share one quick story when I got back on the ship. I'm not a really religious person, but there was just no other avenue for me to explain anything or to experience anything. So I asked for the chaplain on the Navy ship to just come visit us for a minute. And when that man walked in, I'd never met him before my life, but I saw the cross-sun is on his collar, and I just broke down in tears. Like, it's very hard to fully grasp what we just went through. And in these short, you just said it's been a week since we've been back, but it's been a week of medical testing, physical testing, doctors, science objectives. Like, we have not had that decompression. We have not had that reflection time. So I'm basing this on what we saw. And when the sun eclipse behind the moon, I think all four of us. I turned to Victor, and I said, "I don't think humanity has evolved to the point of being able to comprehend what we're looking at right now." 'Cause it was otherworldly and was amazing. Wiseman says, "I'm not a religious person. The next person with the microphone is Victor Glova. He is a Christian, and he was the pilot." He says this. The only thing I would add is that, "Beautiful, thank you for sharing that. That was a really special moment. I was in the bed right across when the chaplain came in, and. The only thing I would add is I am a religious person, but everything else is the same. It was. There is something in there, and as we start to process, I'll have to tell you next week, but haven't had a chance to really unpack it all yet. Two set of prior beliefs about the universe, the earth, and is there a god, and yet one unified experience of awe, and these two men feel the same. Now, Victor Glova has very much worn his faith on his sleeve. Before the mission lived off on April 1st, Victor Glova says this. "We need Jesus, whether on earth or circling the moon. On Easter Sunday, he said this." "When I read the Bible and I look at all of the amazing things that were done for us, who were created? You have this amazing place, this spaceship. You guys are talking to us because we're in a spaceship really far from earth, but you're on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe and the cosmos." As you reflected on the specialness of humanity from the vantage point of the spaceship, he said this. "Maybe the distance we are from you makes you think what we're doing is special, but we're the same distance from you, and I'm trying to tell you, just trust me, you are special. In all of this emptiness, this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe. You have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together." On the 6th of April, just as they were to go behind the moon and lose radio contact, Victor Glova wanted his last message back to the base to be this. "Christ said in response to what was the greenest command that it was to love that with all that you are. And he also being a great teacher said this, "I can't need equal to it, and that is to love your neighbor as yourself." He quotes from Scripture, "Christ said the greatest command is to love God with all that you are, and the second is equal to it to love your neighbor as yourself." And then on the 10th of April, after splashing down, he had to give all the glory to God. When this started on April 3rd, I wanted to thank God in public, and I want to thank God again, because even bigger than my challenge trying to describe what we went through, the gratitude of seeing what we saw, doing what we did and being with who I was with, it's too big to just be in one body. So, read Weisman, not a believer, Victor Glova, a believer, but they're both having the same kind of feeling about this unified experience they had of looking back at the earth and seeing our context in the midst of a black and empty space, also it seems. Now, interestingly, neither of them had the experience of the Russian cosmonauts, famously in 1961 and '62, Russia sent up cosmonauts to outer space, and famously President Krushchev said our cosmonauts have gone into outer space, and they did not see God as though that is one final nail in the coffin of a dead deity. The prior beliefs of those communists was to see something very different to what Victor Glova saw certainly, but also to what non-religious person read Weisman saw. Here's the point that I want to make with the help of CS Lewis, the eyes that we are using, when we see either the uniqueness of earth or the grandeur of the heavens, it is our posture, it is our prior commitments and belief and disposition that makes all the difference in what we are going to see. CS Lewis was invited to write a response to Krushchev saying that our cosmonauts went into the heavens and they did not see God, and he wrote an essay that originally was called "Onward Christian Space Men", but has come to be known as the seeing eye, and we'll see what it's called the seeing eye in a second. But I really like the point that CS Lewis begins with. He actually says the disturbing thing would not be cosmonauts going up into space and not seeing God. He says the disturbing thing would be cosmonauts going up into space and seeing God, like spotting Him on the dark side of the moon. That would be the disturbing thing. Can you imagine it? There's God, He's been hiding all along and He just says "Peekaboo!" That would be the truly disturbing thing. If there was this finite creature within the heavens, who's just been peeking around from the dark side of the moon, saying "Oh, you found me!" Now you go hide and I'll come find you like "That would be. " That would be the truly disturbing thing if the cosmonauts actually did get into space and see God. No, of course the cosmonauts are not going to see God. He writes this, "Looking for God or heaven by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters or stratford as one of the places." Shakespeare is in one sense present at every moment in every play but he is never present in the same way as Fall Star for. Lady Macbeth, nor is he diffused through the play like a gas. If there were an idiot who thought plays existed on their own without an author, not to mention actors produce some managers stage hands and whatnot, our belief in Shakespeare would not be much affected by his saying, "Quite truly, that he had studied all the plays and never found Shakespeare in them." He's calling Christchief an idiot there. He's kind of calling atheism idiotic. At that point, but that's the beauty of an analogy. You can press into an analogy and you can reduce to absurdity. You can do a reducteo at absurdum and see where a certain position takes you. It's reduced to absurdity. But he says it would be idiotic to think that a play exists without an author to be honest it's even more idiotic to think that there is a world without a creator. Lewis goes on the rest of us in varying degrees according to our perceptiveness. Found Shakespeare in the plays, that it is a quite different sort of finding from anything our poor friend has in mind. Did Reed Weisman go into the heavens to find God? Well, possibly, but whatever finding of God will happen to Reed or to any of us, it is not by that particular saying "I." There is a different kind of perception that we need in order to see God through these moments. That's why Lewis says later in the article, he says, "If you sent a saint up in a spaceship, he'll find God in space as he found God on earth." Much depends on the seeing "I." We need to be oriented correctly to be paying attention to the right things, to be seeing in the right way. We need the right kind of seeing "I" in order to reach God. Lewis says this about how are we ever going to reach God therefore. Lewis says about the reaching "I am a far less reliable guy" that is because I never had the experience of looking for God. It was the other way around. He was the hunter, also it seemed to me, and I was the deer. He stalked me. It took unearring aim and fired, and I am very thankful that that is how the first conscious meeting occurred. It forearms one against subsequent fears that the whole thing was only wish fulfillment, something one didn't wish for can hardly be that. But it is significant that this long evaded encounter happened at a time when I was making a serious effort to obey my conscience. No doubt it was far less serious than I supposed, but it was the most serious I had made for a long time. One of the first results of such an effort is to bring your picture of yourself down to something nearer life size. The kind of seeing "I" that you need needs to understand and appreciate and feel our own littleness. If you are going to see a great God, then you need to be in the correct perspective, which is to understand, know and appreciate and feel your own littleness. And of course the astronauts had a lot of opportunity to feel their littleness. Jeremy Hansen, one of the other astronauts, said this in the press conference. I've been trying to find words for it. I don't really have it yet, but we just saw so many amazing things. Some people ask what's the most amazing one and it's, you can't pick one. There are just so many amazing experiences we had. But overall, what I keep coming back to is what kept grabbing my attention when the lighting was right and we were looking at the window is that I kept seeing this like depth to, I guess, the galaxy. You know, for what we were visually observing out there, this depth to the galaxy that I just had never experienced before. And it's not that I could tell which stars were really closer and further because it has to do with how bright they are, but because of how bright they are and their differences, they look like you can tell where they are in 3D. at the top. That was mind blowing for me. And then you see the same thing with the moon in the earth. You're viewing them from this new perspective, but this perspective with like three-dimensional depth. And I've heard Christina talk about this a lot. We're all kind of struck by these things that make us feel small. And that the sense I had was the sense of fragility and feeling small, infinitesimally small. But yet, this very powerful feeling as a human being, like as a guru. And that is what to me is what I would try to share. I saw it in all these sites over and over again. I kept seeing that same thing and that same feeling. Small and powerless, but yet powerful together. And that is the seeing eye that is ready to see God. I think the astronauts have gone into the heavens not so much to see God, but to become the kinds of people who can see God in a different kind of a way. In a sense, what they have seen is themselves, what they have seen is planet earth. And they are urging all of us to turn back and look at planet earth in a new way to figure out who we are small and powerless and yet powerful together. Somehow utterly insignificant and somehow infinitely significant. That is the seeing eye that first sees ourselves, but then is able to appreciate God for who God must be. And as I finished, I just want to have a look at four different visions for what humanity must be that give you four different visions of who God actually is. And the first vision I want to show you is Carl Sagan's vision of what we are like in 1919, in fact, on Valentine's Day, 1990. NASA's Voyager 1 sent out the longest selfie stick ever. At a distance of 3.7 billion miles from the Sun, the Voyager 1 turned back to take a photograph of planet earth. And that image inspired the title of Carl Sagan's book, Pale Blue Dot, A Vision of the Human Future in Space. Carl Sagan says this about this particular vision of Earth. From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Considering on that dot, that's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being whoever was, lived out their lives. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privilege to position in universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. In all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the follow of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot. The only home we've ever known. Here we are, this insignificant pale blue dot, a moat of dust suspended in a sunbeam. And there is no significance to us. And there is no one from outside who has loved us, there's no hints that there is any help coming from beyond us. So here we are, this moat of dust suspended in a sunbeam, so love one another. Like, do you feel the non-sequitor? I feel the non-sequitor, quite strongly. In Carl Sagan's vision for planet Earth, he sort of turns back and looks at Earth, sees our insignificance. But what follows from that insignificance? If we are really so insignificant, then all the rivers of blood that have flowed at the hands of despots, they are insignificant too. And that evil is not really so evil, is it? If we are just a moat of dust suspended in a sunbeam, the evil that has been committed is not really so evil. And the kindness that we ought to share with others, where does this ought come from? Some might choose to be kind, some might also choose to be just as callous to the evil and good of this world, as the universe seems to be. Calus ultimate reality, kindness for humans. That's Carl Sagan's vision. I don't think it makes a heck of a lot of sense. At all, he says we are not loved, but we should love others. There's one vision for planet Earth. Let's have a look at another vision for planet Earth, alien. There's Sigourney Weaver on a spaceship, and it's kill or be killed, because really, in space no one can hear you scream. Ultimate reality really is Calus. Why shouldn't you be Calus too? There are predators out there, and it is a battle for survival. Be the apex predator. In this vision of planet Earth, we are not loved, and we should not love. It's literally a horrifying vision, but at least it's consistent. So Carl Sagan's pale blue dot, we are not loved, but we should love, alien, we are not loved, and we don't need to love either. And it's two by two grid. Let's think of a third option. What about being loved, but not passing it on? I think right there you've got the Axium Humans on the spaceship Axium from the film Wally, and here are some coddled, privileged spoil brats who just go around on their hoverchairs glued to their screens, shugging down milkshakes. The Axium Humans is a vision of what planet Earth might be. If we are simply coddled, simply feel ourselves to be loved and entitled and privileged and never pass it on to others. This in its own way is a horrifying vision as well. But I don't think any of these three visions are what the Artemis two astronauts were experiencing when they turned back and looked at planet Earth. Here's Christina Cook at the press conference just after they splashed down. I think she says it so well that when she looks at planet Earth, she sees a crew. People asked our crew what impressions we had. And honestly, what struck me wasn't necessarily just Earth. It was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe. I may have not learned, I know I haven't learned, everything that this journey has yet to teach me. But there's one new thing I know. And that is planet Earth, you are a crew. That is a certain doctrine of humanity. You could look at humanity and just see a bunch of different tribes fighting it out. You could have an alien vision for what humanity is. How do we have a crew vision for what humanity is? It's absolutely insignificant and yet loved and intended to pass that love on. To see humanity that way is to start to have the seeing eye. You recognize that the evil of this world is not insignificant. It is not relativized into almost infinite nothingness by the infinite callousness of the universe. Evil is real, good is real, morality is real, conscience is real, the kindness that Carl Sagan calls us to is real. And you know you can go up to outer space to get a true vision of humanity. What was the Roger Kipling line, something like he knows not England who only England knows. We know not Earth. If only Earth we know. Sometimes we need to get out of Earth and look back at Earth to discover both the insignificance and the significance. And the seeing eye with which we attempt to perceive God actually understands itself in all our fragility and frailty but belovedness. Then we're ready to see God in the sense that C.S. Lewis put it. Let me finish with Isaiah, chapter 40. Here is the prophet Isaiah trying to give us a true vision of ourselves and a true vision of the Lord. And we know from Mark chapter 1 that the Lord that is being spoken of here is Jesus himself, the eternal Son of God. As Isaiah 40 verse 12, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens, who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who can fathom the spirit of the Lord or instruct the Lord as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him and taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding? Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket. They are regarded as dust on the scales. He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Lebanon is not sufficient for alter fires nor its animals enough for burnt offerings. Before him all the nations are as nothing they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing. With whom then will you compare God? To what image will you liken him? As for an idol, a metal worker cast it and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashioned silver chains for it, a person too poor to present such an offering select wood that will rot. They look for a skilled worker to set up an idol that will not topple. To you not know. Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth. And it's people. like grass-hoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princess to nought and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they so, no sooner do they take root in the ground than he blows on them and they wither and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. To whom will you compare me or who is my equal says the holy one, lift up your eyes and look to the heavens who created all these. He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name because of his great power and mighty strength not one of them is missing. Why do you complain Jacob? Why do you say Israel my way is hidden from the Lord, my cause is disregarded by my God? Do you not know, have you not heard? The Lord is the ever-lasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary and is understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even yous grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Because of the Lord Jesus who has come to visit us to help us to save us, to set us on our feet and send us as bearers of his compassion we are loved and we are too love. Can you take this perspective? Can you take this posture? Can you see with these eyes? Well then when you see Jesus you will know that he is God. He is the one who has visited us, that we are not the great seekers who go into the heavens to find God, but he is the great God who has sought us on earth. Pray for, read Weisman and pray for all the astronauts. Pray for all of us who are processing with these astronauts what they have seen when they have turned the camera back upon the earth. To be given these kinds of seeing eyes, yes, perhaps with these seeing eyes we can finally see God. If you want to see God in the face of Jesus Christ you can go to 321Course.com it is our free course you can binge it in a couple of hours or you can do it over eight sessions. We see through the lens of Jesus to discover who is God, what is the world? Who are you? It is life according to Jesus in 321 go to 321Course.com and check that out now. If you've got this far in the video please do give it a like and a share around the place and subscribe to us so we can catch you on the next video. God bless you.