In 1977 NASA launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 to explore the galaxy. A golden record called The Sounds of Earth was affixed to each of the twin spacecrafts—a message from earth to anyone out there in the universe who might be listening. It contained both music and the sound of a human heartbeat.

Over thirty years later, Annie Druyan, who served as the creative director of NASA's famous Voyager Interstellar Message (VIM) Project, reflected on what she chose to include in The Sounds of Earth:

The first thing I found myself thinking of was a piece by Beethoven from Opus 130, something called the Cavatina Movement … When I [first] heard this piece of music … I thought … Beethoven, how can I ever repay you? What can I ever do for you that would be commensurate with what you've just given me? And so, as soon as [my colleague] said, "[This message is] going to last a thousand million years," I thought of … this great, beautiful, sad piece of music, on which Beethoven had written in the margin … the word sehnsucht, which is German for "longing." Part of what we wanted to capture in the Voyager message was this great longing we feel.

So in the end, NASA chose a great song of human longing and launched it into space. It's as if NASA's scientists were saying to the rest of the universe: "This is who and what we are as human beings: creatures of longing." And hidden in that basic "introduction to who we are" there are implicit questions for possible extraterrestrials: Do you feel this too? Are we the only ones? Are we crazy?

Possible Preaching Angles: Human Longings and Christ's Satisfaction—This story not only points to our deep longing for meaning, beauty, and wholeness. It can also illustrate our need for the only One who can satisfy these deep longings—Christ.