WHEN GRACE DESCENDS....

For 12 hours groups like Guns 'n' Roses have blasted the crowd through banks of speakers, riling up fans already high on booze and dope. The crowd yells for more curtain calls and the rock groups oblige. Meanwhile, Jessye Norman sits in her dressing room discussing “Amazing Grace” with Bill Moyers.

The hymn was written by John Newton, a coarse, cruel slave trader. He first called out to God in the midst of a storm that nearly threw him overboard. Newton came to see the light gradually, but continued to apply his trade even after his conversion. He wrote the song "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds” while waiting in a African harbour for a shipment of African slaves. Later though he renounced his profession, became a minister and joined in the fight against slavery. John Newton never lost sight of the depths from which he had been lifted. He never lost sight of grace. When he wrote “that saved a wretch like me” he meant those words with all his heart.

Jessye Norman tells Bill Moyers that Newton may have borrowed an old tune sung by the slaves themselves, redeeming the song, just as he had been redeemed. 

Finally the time came for her to sing. A single circle of light follows Norman, a majestic African-American women wearing a flowing African dashiki as she strolls onstage. No backup band, no musical instruments, just Jessye. The crowd stirs, restless. Few recognize the opera diva. A voice yells for more Guns 'n' Roses. Others take up the cry. The scene is getting ugly.

Alone, a capella, Jessye Norman begins to sing, very slowly. "Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see."

A remarkable thing happens in Wembly Stadium that night. Seventy thousand raucous fans fall silent before her aria of grace. By the time Norman reaches the second verse, "Twas' grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved" several thousand fans are singing along, digging far back in nearly lost memories for words they heard long ago. When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing Gods praise than when we’ve first begun".

Jessye Norman later confessed she had no idea what power descended on Wembley Stadium that night.  I think I know.  The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent. 

(Excerpt from the Visual Edition of What's So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey.....)