High Grace on the High Seas!

What stories from the road it was about seven weeks ago on a Sunday morning 845 to be precise at Denver International Airport in the security area where you're going through to get things checked to be able to get on the planes and there was an announcement made for folks to just observe a moment of silence Sunday morning 845 September 11th 2022 and when they observed that when they stopped this is what they heard there is something about that song the haunting tune that takes me dozens of places people around the world these days know the song amazing grace they may not know the words which are the most important part but they know that tune that particular tune is a form of what is called new Britain that was put to the song almost 60 years after the pinning of the words but that song takes me dozens of places I have sung that song as many of you have at bed sides in cars going across country at funeral services in hospital rooms and living rooms I've sung it on the Washington D.C. mall with hundreds of thousands of men during the promise keepers event on 27 years ago I've sung it in the Amazon jungle on the banks of the cura I river with aboriginal indigenous people called the Guarani who actually killed the people who brought a message of grace to them but one of the things that strikes me is that song takes me back to a moment in time not because of the song but because of the place it was the summer of 1949 I was seven years old and my mother and my sister and I were coming home from India on a Danish freighter 5000 ton Danish freighter called the Johannes Merck 5000 tons for a ship is not large it's a tub if you will I was seven my sister was 11 there were eight passengers for almost five weeks on the open sea out across the Indian Ocean up to the Suez Canal take a hard left go out through the Mediterranean go pass the rocket Gibraltar across the Atlantic to Boston when you're seven years old that's a great adventure there's something about standing on the deck of a ship with the wind blowing and bow wave casting spray up in your face that's just exhilarating the challenge was that we had left two weeks early to beat the monsoons which are seasonal there in that part of the world and that year the monsoon came two weeks early and we were in a typhoon created by this weather system for three days 20 and 30 foot waves the we our cabin was just under the bridge in this old tub if you will and the prow would go under the water and the waves would crash into the front or we'd go up and slide off sideways and everybody was sick the captain the crew all eight passengers of course I you know I'm seven years old and I was just getting started in life and I thought maybe I was done maybe it was over dead kaput gone I've since been in several storms not like that but in a couple of powerful earthquakes in California storms at sea and earthquakes on land have one thing in common there is nowhere to run the difference between an earthquake on land and a storm at sea is that most earthquakes might last a couple of minutes and that's pretty severe typhoons or hurricanes can last a couple of days it was a storm like that in the Atlantic off the northwest coast of Ireland in 1748 that would decades later put words to the song we know as amazing grace let me give you the cliff notes to that story where where did that song come from well it began in London in 1725 when a baby boy was born to John and Elizabeth Newton Elizabeth Newton was a godly woman godfaring woman her husband perhaps not so much he was a stern seafaring man captain of his own ship a merchantman John sat at his mother's knee for almost seven years listening to her teach him scripture tell him Bible stories no doubt sing songs to him and with him two months before his seventh birthday Elizabeth Newton died of tuberculosis and the next four years were challenging for little John he was sent off to a boarding school that didn't work well for a couple of years and then he got in with some young friends that weren't great and at age 11 his father took him to see can you imagine being on a on a merchant ship this these ships are not five thousand tonne freighters as small as that is by today's standards maybe at the top level at the utmost if you will you'd have a ship that was five hundred tons and here's a boy age 11 what we would call today a preteen just on the cusp of his youth being put into a situation with really challenging tough people in tough circumstances and for the next several years he was with his father on that ship and along the way his father started transporting slaves they would go from England down to the hump of Africa to what they called the the guinea area they called these people guinea men because they would buy slaves on the southwest coast of Africa and then transport them across the middle passage chained in between the decks horrific conditions but anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of the slaves would die in process and sometimes up to 20 percent of the crew themselves from fevers malaria and other kinds of things when they got to the Americas the Caribbean South America the south east part of the United States not then the United States they would be sold oftentimes most of the time families split up and with that money rum and cotton would be bought to be brought back to England and make the trip again oftentimes the trip would take a year or two and that's the context for John Newton's growing up years when he was 17 his father had arranged for him to have what we would call a job interview so I suppose trying to get it get him caught out of the business but he blew that off and went to see a girl that he had really become attracted to in London her name was Mary Catholic and in that process in that little journey he was what would later become called Shanghai he was impressed by an impressment gang of the British Navy they just would find a young man on the street strapping young guy grab him put him on a warship and off he'd go and that's where John Newton went for the next almost two years at one point he hated the ship he hated the work he was rebellious he wouldn't obey orders he created wrote body songs about the captain and he deserted they captured him brought him back strapped him tied him to the mast and in front of 350 sailors gave him 96 lashes at that point in his journals later he wrote I was thinking of ways to murder the captain or kill myself the f-shot was that he was traded off passed off to a merchant ship turned out again to be a slave ship taking himself to the coast of Africa they're given to a guy who ran slaves along with his wife and he became a slave for a couple of years so not only did he transport slaves he became one then his father put out the word let's go find my boy we need to find my boy and one of his friends who captained the ship Greyhound found him mercy early on in West Africa had to convince him to come back by fabricating a story they put him on the ship they they headed for home and as they beat northward they got up off the coast of Ireland northwest tip of county donagall and this would be March of 1748 horrific storm ran into an horrific storm and in that the cargo shifted the ship was foundering if you will on its way down men had been washed overboard he knew how to stir a ship he had been on ships for years they I understand some of the stories say that he was strapped to the wheel so he was there at one point for 11 hours and in the middle of that darkness and that terror he called out to God some some thought some remembrance some seed from those early seven years at his mother's knee came through and at age 23 he called out to God it would be years it would be twenty some years before he would pen those words he he even though he called out to God and said that was the start of his journey he said it was a long journey he would not consider himself quote a believer in Jesus in the full sense of the word he still ran slave ships for six years after that then he had a convulsive fit a stroke of some kind it had to go to shore and was there for ten years and in that time he grew in his faith he was mentored by pastors and other solid men of faith he applied to become a clergyman nobody really wanted him for a variety of reasons as you might appreciate and then at age 39 he did become part of the Anglican clergy and for the next 40 years 40 plus years he pastored in a town called only and then later in Woolmouth in London in 1772 24 years after his experience in that horrific storm he penned these words it was a poem to go with a message that he was going to be preaching and these are the words we know amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch you can put that in caps if you'd like like me the the words are short monosyllables a lot of them it was in the day when in the Anglican church you had a sing a certain kind of song a certain kind of song and oftentimes the meaning of the words would escape the common man what he called plain people plain folk and so he wrote songs that could be remembered the poetry that could be remembered 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 it was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed through many dangers toils and snares I have already come to his grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home and finally when we've been there 10,000 years bright shining as the sun we've known as days to sing God's praise then when we first began it's an incredible story I've read lots about John Newton I have lots more to read but here is a person who has a captain of a ship kept a journal and that every day they keep journals on ships so the weather conditions the incidents the where they are on the face of the earth if you hold on the face of the high seas and that translated that continued into his faith journey keeping a journal and then he would write when he was at sea he would write his wife now Mary Catlett that young girl that he had gone to sea he would write her from the ship and then later on he would correspond with people who mentored him and learn both his scriptures his theology his view of the world through correspondence by letters so there are scores and scores of his letters just a few thoughts about that amazing grace that John Newton spoke of first of all grace is not natural when we are crossed or hurt or injured in some way as a human being justice or revenge is where I naturally go I don't naturally go to well I forgive you for that so it's it isn't natural it just isn't in that way grace is is way more than an idea isn't it grace has to be experienced it's it's like a taste of fresh cold water from a mountain stream high up in the Rockies near the source once tasted nothing else compares to that but we are broken people aren't we I mean everybody has struggles many trials, trials and snares is how Newton put it I love what started happening a couple hundred years ago in Japanese culture where a precious vessel clay vessel of some kind or porcelain vessel would be broken and someone some artist some craftsman artisan started taking those pots and putting them back together piece by piece by mixing glue and gold and by the time that piece was completed it became more beautiful and more valuable than the original that process was called kensugi the golden journey I would I would submit that that's what amazing grace does it restores the shattered to hole by the use of gold it is indeed the golden journey grace is gold finally grace is received you got to receive it I mean it to be like having that cold water available to you in the tap or the faucet in your kitchen but never turning the handle one has to be willing to receive that grace that not natural grace from a most high god and I like how St. Augustin put it he said grace comes to open hands if I'm holding on to things if I'm holding on to my insecurities my fears my anger over my history grudges that I will not let go of there's no space for grace so if I'm willing to let that go and extend my hands perhaps physically but certainly metaphorically to receive the grace of a god who wants to give it or who has given it that's how it works and once I've received it I get to give it when he says that the mercy of god is great there's this old other song that has as part of the refrain mercy there was great and grace was free I think that as one of those Jesus followers one of those guys who has received grace that I have a wonderful opportunity slash obligation the great gift of being able to give it away to be merciful because it's happened to me I have the privilege of helping it happen for others there's one greater thing than being forgiven is there and that's it that's simply being able to forgive it unlocks people's doors it unlocks my door and lets me out to roam free on the high seas if you will but not in a storm the point of this story and the upshot of it all is that John Newton discovered that that verse in the first chapter of the gospel of John in the New Testament is true that the word became flesh and made as dwelling among us that's this Jesus of Nazareth person we have seen his glory the glory of the one and only son who came from the father here it comes full of grace and truth here's a couple of questions for this week as we wrap up one is we know that god made grace available to us at least that's what we're told and we've experienced many of us the the real question is who what human being in my life yours showed us grace along the way something that unlocked our doors or gave us great relief or freedom what human being did that in your story and secondly to whom have I shown mercy along the way to what situation can I point and say yes that was a great opportunity to do that just something to ponder this next week that's it for today thanks a million for listening and and I just am so grateful for those of you who subscribe some of you have sent notes or made comments that encourage us along this journey let's walk in grace together and I'll catch you next time God bless