Billy Graham Was Not a Hero

But he spent his life telling the Gospel story of a man who is

America’s pastor died today.

William Franklin Graham was born four days before the end of World War I. He died today, almost a hundred years later. The world changed a lot in those hundred years, for better and for worse. Graham was part of some of those changes — for better and for worse.

Just about everyone knows who Billy Graham is. Which is a pretty remarkable thing, considering how unremarkable Graham was. Billy was the oldest of four and spent his childhood on the family dairy farm near Charlotte, North Carolina. He was a farm boy, and he looked the part at 6'2" with a rugged handsomeness, but he grew up to become a voice known to generations.

During his lifetime, Billy Graham preached the Good News of Jesus Christ to more than 215 million people in 80 countries across every continent. He led more than 400 crusades and rallies, with messages broadcast across 185 countries and territories.

Graham spoke before a still-record Los Angeles Coliseum crowd in 1963. He preached in front of 250,000 at Central Park. In 1973 Graham spoke before his biggest crowd ever, over 1.1 million in Seoul. That same year he led the first integrated crusade in South Africa.

Graham was on 60 Minutes, Larry King Live, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He graced the cover of Time, People, Newsweek, and Life. He was an American icon. How many other Sunday preachers does an entire nation know? What other pastors are written about as the cover story for Time — twice? Graham was one of a kind.

But Graham wasn’t known for extraordinary vocabulary or an incredible way with words. Unlike the Pope or the Dalai Lama, he wasn’t followed by a particular church or people. Instead, Graham was known for the simple Gospel message he preached time and again:

God loves you. God loves you, even though you have sinned. God loves you so much that he sent his only son Jesus Christ to earth to die on a cross for those sins, and if you believe in Him and make a commitment to Christ, God will forgive your sins and give you eternal life.

Graham’s message was simple but profound, because he let the message speak for itself. He was not a hero. The message was.

Billy Graham is not the only well-known Christian evangelist in American history. Before him was Billy Sunday, before that D.L. Moody. Names like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield dot American history books.

One name you may not recognize is Mordecai Ham, a preacher from Kentucky. You don’t know Ham’s name, but Billy Graham did. Graham met Mordecai Ham as a 15-year-old. He was intrigued by the message Ham preached, and it was then that Graham made a commitment to Christ. Without a relatively unknown Mordecai Ham, there may have never been a Billy Graham as we know him today.

But Mordecai Ham was not a hero. He’s just a man who knew Good News and felt compelled to share it, and he just happened to share it with someone who would go on to share that same Gospel message with hundreds of millions of others.

Sharing good news does not make someone a hero. A person with a life jacket needs no special instructions if they come across someone drowning. Sharing the life jacket only stops them from being a villain. The life jacket is the hero of the story. The life jacket is what saves.

Billy Graham was not a hero.

We watch movies about superheroes who overcome flaws to defeat the enemy and tie everything up in a lovely bow. We like our heroes to be perfect — we like them fictional. Heroes are meant to be flawless, worthy of admiring day by day.

Billy Graham was a sinner.

He would’ve been the first to tell you that. Billy Graham was a sinner saved by grace, a broken man who daily repented of his sins and admitted he was just a vessel for God’s message:

“Any honors I have received I accept with a sense of inadequacy and humility, and I will reserve the right to hand all of these some day to Christ, when I see Him face to face. Because I’m a servant, not a master — I’m a servant of the King of Kings.”

Graham was far from flawless. He said some unsavory things about Jews, about gays, about AIDS. Some of those things he later walked back; others he did not. Graham helped many people, but he also hurt many. There are some who celebrated Graham’s death because of things he said and did. He was not perfect. Not even close.

Graham’s flaws should not be dismissed or glossed over. He needn’t be defined as “Good” or “Bad.” We need not judge whether Graham deserved to be called a hero of the faith. Billy Graham was never the story.

It was those sins in Graham’s own life that made him so treasure the message he shared. Graham didn’t share his life jacket because he was a hero. He shared it because he first recognized his own desperate and constant need for the same life jacket he would one day share with millions.

Billy Graham was not the hero of his own story. He never presumed to be. What made Billy Graham seem heroic at times was the way he acted as a vessel to the real hero of the story.

Billy Graham was a window into the saving grace of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who came to save sinners like him. If Graham thought himself a hero, he would never have needed God in the first place.

It was his sin, and not his heroism, that defined Billy Graham’s ministry. His preaching did not make him a hero, and his sin did not make him a villain. His sin made him a preacher.

Billy Graham was not a hero. The life jacket he shared was.

Jesus is the hero of Billy Graham’s story. And though Graham is no longer with us, his life-saving message of God’s love and grace still is.

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