In 1991 Astronaut James Irwin spoke to over 2000 in Liverpool about his journey to the Moon on the Apollo 15 Mission in 1971.
For Jim the Mission was a pilgrimage from a nearly dead Christian faith to one that was dynamic. For the next 20 years he loved to describe hearing the words, “We have lift off…!” Later he wrote, “Oh what power! What thrust! What acceleration! It was glorious!” He described how the downward pull of his sin was overcome by the resurrection power of Christ. He was released from the gravitational pull of guilt and put into the weightless orbit of a Christ-centred life.
In the Bible the English word forgive means to lift off the weight of sin. But the English spelling of the word in Hebrew is NASA. How interesting!