64 years ago today, October 4, 1957, the Russians launched the first earth satellite. I was in the 6th grade, and I remember it well. In 1970 – 1971, I was in the Air Force tracking Sputnik’s successors with long-range radar.
Sputnik kicked off the space race and a lot of cool technology. In the phones we hold in our hands, we have WAY more computing power than we went to the moon with. On previous Sputnik days I wrote about Technology and Shalom and the challenge of using science to develop a vaccine against COVID-19.
Today, unfortunately, the challenge is to get people to accept the vaccine. Today is an age of people making up their own version of events. There are people who don’t believe Sputnik happened nor that the United States put men on the moon. But Sputnik and its successors are real – I’ve tracked them myself. I once was an official eye-witness to a Soviet reconnaissance satellite re-entering earth’s atmosphere. I’ve talked with many of the astronauts who walked on the moon, including Buzz Aldrin, whom I’ve written about before.
There are also people who don’t accept the results of the last presidential election. Tom Brady in the same Wall Street Journal interview I mentioned Saturday, having a little fun with President Biden, said about Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl victory, “Not a lot of people, you know, think we could have won. About 40 percent of the people still don’t think we won. You understand that, Mr. President?”
Anyway, today is Sputnik Day, a fact of history, an accomplishment of science.
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43.19, ESV)
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15.12 – 20, ESV, emphasis mine)