Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.

Dear All.

We all know the hymn ‘Amazing Grace.’ Those words could easily apply to St Paul, our patron saint. Because by his own admission he was a wretch, the chief among sinners. He was lost in his hatred towards Jesus and his Church, until the Lord found him. And, although he was blinded on the Damascus Road, the Lord restored his sight.

But those words could equally apply to every sinner saved by the Amazing Grace of Jesus down the ages, and they certainly apply to John Newton, the person who wrote the hymn in the first place.

John Newton was not a nice person. He was a slave trader who worked along the coast of West Africa. You know you’ve come to no good when you’re able to sell your fellow human beings to line your own pockets, and eventually his shipmates got sick of him too. They abandoned him in a slave colony and sailed off without him. Probably John Newton was too debauched at this point to care. 

But if John Newton didn’t care, God did, and he set his Amazing Grace in motion to save him. We can see this in two instances. First, God’s grace was at work in John Newton’s father who’d never forgotten him, despite what he’d become. He dispatched a sea captain to see if he could find and rescue his son. Through God’s grace the sea captain was successful and brought him back on the ship Greyhound. But this was when God revealed more of his goodness. The Greyhound was struck by a severe storm and began to sink. John Newton threw himself on the mercy of God and prayed that he might be saved. Against all hope the storm abated and the ship sailed on in safety. Nothing could stop Grace from leading John Newton home.

This was a decisive moment in the life of John Newton. He turned his back on his former life, repented of his sins and turned to Jesus. In time he would become an ardent campaigner against the slave trade and work for its abolition.

The message of John Newton and St Paul is that no one is exempt from the Grace of God, and that there is hope for us all. Sometimes we think that we are unworthy of his Grace because of the things that we have done. We think that we are cast out of his kingdom because of our mistakes. But that’s to diminish God’s grace which is amazing in its capacity to save us. If he can save people like John Newton and St Paul, he can certainly save us. Let us hold on to his promise, which is good for us, and his word, which secures us.

Your friend and vicar, David.