This past year, the world lost the great evangelizer of the
past 100 years, Rev. Billy Graham. In the sixty years he spent in active
ministry, he visited 185 countries speaking to over 215 million people. Besides
his numerous tours, he reached hearts and minds with the good news of Jesus
Christ through his many books and radio programs. It is no exaggeration to
claim that, in the history of the world, no single person has ever preached the
gospel to as many people as Rev. Graham has.
Though he was a Baptist minister, he had great respect for
Catholics. Whenever Catholics would accept Christ at his revivals, he would
direct them to their local Catholic parish rather than try to steer them to a
Protestant congregation. He also became good friends with Pope Saint John Paul
II whom Rev. Graham called “the greatest Christian witness of the twentieth
century”.
Back in 2010 when he was 92 years old, Rev. Graham gave a
television interview in which he spoke frankly about how he views death. He
said:
I
have a tremendous amount of hope because I am a believer
in
Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead. And I believe
He
is alive right now. My wife is already in heaven, I look forward
to
seeing her, definitely, in the near future, because I’m 92 now
and
I know that my time is limited on this earth. But I have
tremendous
hope in the fact that I’ll be in the future life, and I’ll
be
there based on what Jesus Christ did for me on the cross
and
by the resurrection. This gives me a great deal of hope.
On this Easter Sunday, when we celebrate the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead, it is fitting that we reflect on these words of
Rev. Billy Graham.
If anything, the resurrection gives us hope. Death was not the
end of Jesus’ story. Because of the resurrection, death will not be the end of
our story. Jesus died on the cross and rose again so that we could spend
eternity with God in Heaven where there will be no more sadness, no more tears
and no more pain. There we will be reunited with our loved ones who have gone
on before us. What has been hidden to us on earth will be revealed to us in
Heaven. We will see Jesus face to face. All of God’s glory will shine forth
from His throne. The longing of our heart for union with the Divine will
finally be quenched as we gaze upon His power and beauty. Nothing we have
experienced on earth can compare to the joy that awaits us in Heaven. And it is
all made possible because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Every baptized Christian believer should live with this active
faith. The hope it gives should be continually lifting up our hearts and
filling our minds. Whenever we feel worthless and alone, we can call to mind
that God loved us enough to send His only Son to die for us. When we are faced
with our own mortality, we should be reminded that this life is but a short
prelude to the eternal life of Heaven. Our tears and fears are only temporary.
They will all be wiped away when we finally gaze upon the face of our Creator.
This active hope does not mean that we sit on our hands waiting
to die. Not at all! Down through the centuries, it has been believers in the
Resurrection of Jesus who have set up hospitals for the sick, established
schools for the young and who fed the poor. It has been those with the active
hope of eternal life who struggled to achieve justice for the oppressed and
protection for the most vulnerable among us. We do all this not despite our
belief in Heaven but because of it. We are a people who proclaim the truth that
Jesus has conquered all sin and evil through His death and resurrection. We
share in that victory already in this life. So we face injustice, poverty and
even death with the conviction that it can never overcome us. We have the
confidence, then, to look evil in the eye, no matter what form it takes, and
strive to set things right. At the same time, we realize that justice and peace
will not fully be established on earth until the end of time when God’s Kingdom
will be fully revealed. Therefore, we do not grow discouraged and are not
misled into thinking we can achieve a utopian paradise in this life. Rather, we
strive to achieve the common good with our eyes fixed on the justice that will never end which God
has saved up for us in Heaven.
Shortly after his death, the following quote of Rev. Billy
Graham was shared frequently on social media: “Someday you will read or hear
that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more
alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into
the presence of God.”
No comments:
Post a Comment