ONE afternoon in the 1970s, in my first parish in Huddersfield, I was visiting the patients in St Luke’s Hospital. I came to the bedside of an elderly man who was seriously ill. I asked him if he would like to receive the Sacrament of the Sick and Communion. He said “no, thanks, Father. I wouldn’t. The last time I received Communion was in the trenches in the First World War almost sixty years ago. God knows what I have been like through all these years and I’m not going to try to pull the wool over his eyes now”. I’m sure God was touched by his honesty and humility. The sentiment he expressed is one that I have heard a few times since. Jesus, however, tells us in the Gospels that there’s no need for us ever to think like that. It’s never too late to turn to God, to ask his help and forgiveness.

At the fifty ninth minute of the last hour of our lives, it’s not too late to turn to God or to have hope that, when we cross the dividing line between time and eternity, our Maker, will treat us not according to the canons of justice but with the much more generous canons of love. He himself assures us that our ways are not his ways and we are never too late to repent.

Our God is a God who treats people not in a tit for tat, retributive way. He is the the over-joyed Father who ran down the road to meet his prodigal son and who treated the prodigal in a way that surpassed all the prodigal’s wildest expectations. He is the heavenly shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep and rejoices more over the sinner who repents than over the ninety-nine who do not need to repent.

This is the season of Lent, the season, when we are invited to repent, to turn back to the God to whom we are so special and who loves us more that we are capable of grasping. John Newton, the slave trader, turned to God and his life was changed dramatically. This prompted him to tell others how wonderful it is to experience God’s love and forgiveness. He did this in his oft sung hymn “Amazing Grace”. Like John Newton, the experience of amazing grace is ours for the asking.