For a man who has welcomed crowds his whole life, the evangelist Billy Graham appeared humbled and a bit embarrassed to be before this one Thursday in a parking lot near the Charlotte airport.
Hundreds of friends, family members, ministers and politicians had gathered to dedicate a library celebrating the ministry of Mr. Graham, whose vast popularity lent him the title “America’s pastor.”
Standing on a platform before the Billy Graham Library, former President George Bush delivered the keynote address, his voice cracking into a sob as he said Mr. Graham was “the man, the preacher, the humble farmer’s son who changed the world.” Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton also spoke of how Mr. Graham had transformed their lives.
Infirm and rarely appearing in public now, Mr. Graham approached the dais using a walker and noted the sense of completion and twilight that marked the speeches before his.
“I feel like I’ve been attending my own funeral, listening to all these speeches,” he said to the crowd’s nervous laughter. “I’ve been here at the library once, and my one comment when I toured it was that it is too much Billy Graham. My whole life has been to please the Lord and honor Jesus, not to see me and think of me.”
Initiated by the Rev. Franklin Graham, Mr. Graham’s older son, and board members of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the library is to serve as a tribute to the 60 years of Mr. Graham’s ministry around the world.
I imagine that most of the saints would say the same.
God Bless you Billy Graham….May the days ahead, with your beautiful Ruth, bring you closer to our Lord so that when He calls you both, the walk will be very short and smooth…….
I could get tearful here. These are amazing times that we have seen the likes of Billy Graham. Some years ago, my Baptist step-father was in the hospital and I took him a pictorial autobiography of John Paul II, primarily because Dr. Graham wrote the introduction to it. He obviously viewed the Pope of Rome as a brother in Christ, a man of God. It’s important to remember that for his spiritual fathers, and many of his own generation, the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon and the Pope a good candidate for the Anti-Christ.
I know it’s cheap sentimentalism, but I can’t resist picturing John Paul holding a spot for Billy Graham in Heaven, very, very close to the Throne. Giants have walked the earth and I thank God to have lived in such a time as to see them.