AMAZING GRACE

As I sat in church today, a young lady named “Brooke,” our pastor’s great granddaughter, stepped to the piano, and played a couple of stanzas of “Amazing Grace.” (And it might be said that she played it right well).

And as Brooke’s fingers slid back and forth over the “ivories,” one, by one, almost every member of our congregation stood in solemn respect for the hymn, the writer of the hymn, and last, but certainly not least, the Savior to whom the song was dedicated in the first place.

Our congregation sings the hymn on a recurring basis. Why, as soon as I hear old Brother Martin say, “Let’s turn to page 186 in the green hymnal,” I cannot remain seated. Strange, no other Christian song elicits the immediate, almost subliminal response of standing to one’s feet.

And it occurs to me that the closest illusion I have to compare to the respect the song engenders is when I counseled a young Hindu woman. Each time Damini walked into my office, she would bend at the waist, and respectfully touch my feet. I think my compulsion to stand during the singing of, “Amazing Grace” is very much like it.

“Amazing Grace” is, with little or no contradiction, the most amazing song which has ever been consigned to paper, and is known throughout the world; to saints and sinners, alike.

I have often reflected that John Newton, the former slave ship captain, and, ultimately, minister of the Gospel, vocal opponent of slavery, and the writer of this hymn, would be almost “bowled over” to discover that his hymn is the best-known song of any kind, secular or religious,… in the history of the world. It has been sung in multiplied dozens of languages, and men and women, boys and girls of every religion, or the lack thereof, recognize it after just a few notes fill the air.

And if “Amazing Grace” is the best-known song which has ever been penned, the first verse of the song is the best-known stanza of any song which has ever been set to paper.

“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!”

I sang, “Amazing Grace” as a solo at both my father’s and mother’s memorial services, and counted it a privilege to do so.  I was privileged to sing this amazing song at a dinner table in Killarney, Ireland last year, and it occurred to me that I wasn’t all that far away from the place where it had been written.



But you know, there was just something eloquent about the earnestness, expressiveness, and endearing quality of that precious song, as Brooke played it on the piano this morning, and I think it spoke to my soul like it never did before.


by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending