Reverend Billy Graham

Billy Graham R.I.P. (rest in peace). Your writer is from the Billy Graham generation.  He was a part of the family.  Sightless, I could not watch the funeral service on television but I listened to it and 1 of my assistance described everything to me.

Every Christian should be so profoundly appreciative that the service not only honored this great preacher but every speaker/prayer/song, so completely honored Jesus Christ.  Most of today's millennia's have never worshipped under a tent, or a brush arbor (tree limbs over a large area protecting you from the sun and rain).  Even in the wealthiest Manhattan skyscrapers Jews still use such for a type of worship, celebrating, not forgetting their time in the desert.  I worshipped under a brush arbor in Africa and went to many tent services here in eastern North Carolina.

The service was truly worthy of the man and the Lord who he served.  I was told by 1 of his assistants with the association during the many crusades, that they had to be so careful about everywhere Billy stayed making sure there was no one with satanic purposes which the media would have devoured; above his hotel room, below his hotel room or on either side attempting to get into his room to embarrass him and the Christian world.  No one ever heard 1 word about Graham's lack of integrity...perhaps his 5 children who spoke were a testimony of his influence and devotion in his own family.  Nor, was there attempt at extravagance in his burial.

The world will little remember the lives of most Christians.  So many worship services have become just big productions.  I so loved the preaching ministry of Dr. R.G. Lee, long time pastor, Bellevue Baptist, Memphis Tennessee.  In these sunset years of my life I regret that he was self-centered.  I would hear him say, "If I tell my people to jump in the river, I will hear water splash.  If I tell my people to jump in the fire I will smell clothes burning".  Humility/meekness is a grace which Christians should learn early in life and this writer/speaker had a very hard time learning it.  I've often considered this when I saw a pastor head for the foyer to shake the hands of those in the congregation and get their praise for his sermon.  If truly effective they should have been weeping and many times, a truly knowledgeable Christian should have walked out of some services where the preacher did not understand what he was talking about.  I suppose most of us were content to sit there and pray for god's mercy.

I believe more unsaved people are touched or face death and their own souls' salvation at a funeral service such as the Billy Graham service than any revival meeting...where; so many times it is just a matter of signing a card (joining the church), perhaps even baptized.  I truly believe that those watching and listening to the Billy Graham funeral service knew that the mans faith was real, that Jesus, his power/grace/mercy/salvation, are real.

My parents never kept any of the realities of life and living from me and death is a part of life.  I still remember the 1st funerals as a very small child.  Before the time of antibiotics, around 1943, there were so many deaths from even simple diseases.  My mother's best friend, Rosell, died from the flu and I remember standing with her at the grave sight.  Death, the grave, the grave yard, was such a mystery to me.  In later years, I spent much time studying grave yards, my ancestral names, the dates, that hyphen between the date of birth and death, wondering what the person was like, wondering about their problems.  I rejoice in knowing that my family, the church where we worshipped (built by my ancestors in 1874) did not hesitate to emphasize heaven and hell, that there is no neutral place just as this Billy Graham service. 

One of my funeral home friends tells me that death has been greatly sanitized, that most families no longer even go to the funeral home.  "Just put him next to 'the cheapest casket you have and cover it with the church pall', no one will see the casket anyway'.  They don't even want to look at the deceased member; they just want to get it over with".  Jesus wept when his friend Lazarus died.  Today, the saved have reason to rejoice/celebrate when believers die because "Jesus paid it all, in his death on the cross".

I was at St. Mary's Catholic cemetery in London where I had searched for Francis Thompson "love is a many splendored thing".  A simple casket covered with an American flag, pulled on a cart followed by a woman in a wheel chair, pushed by a Catholic priest was the entire funeral cortege.  I went back to the gravesite where the workmen had already started throwing dirt on the casket.  I reached down and took her gloved hand, "I am an American".  She handed me the battle flag which had covered the casket.  The priest said, "She is not very cognitive but appreciates you being here.  They met in WWII and she was in a nursing home, separate from the 1 where he died.  Soon they will be together again".