The Capsule That Carried Them Through the Fire

On July 24, 1969, the Apollo 11 command module Columbia hit Earth's atmosphere at nearly 25,000 miles per hour. The exterior temperature reached 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to melt steel. For four minutes, all radio contact went dead. Mission Control in Houston fell silent. Every person in that room knew the math: outside the capsule meant instant death. But inside, astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins sat in a habitable 75 degrees, shielded by a heat barrier only inches thick.

The fire that should have consumed them became the friction that slowed them home.

This is the picture the Apostle Peter paints when he reaches for the story of Noah. Eight people entered the ark — a wooden vessel sealed by the hand of the Almighty — and the very waters of judgment that destroyed the world carried them safely through to new life on the other side. Peter says baptism works the same way. Not as some ritual scrubbing of the skin, but as the pledge of a clear conscience before God, made possible because Christ Himself passed through death and came out alive on the other side.

The righteous One died for the unrighteous. He descended into the depths. And He emerged victorious, with all authority in heaven at His right hand.

We are not saved by avoiding the fire. We are saved because Someone built the vessel and carried us through it.