More than 2,000 turn out for Billy Graham’s funeral
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Family members escorted Billy Graham’s plain wooden casket into a massive tent at the Billy Graham Library as more than 2,000 guests, including President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and their wives, gathered Friday for the evangelist’s funeral.
The 28,000-square-foot tent, built to withstand the wind gusting through Charlotte, harkens to the 1949 crusade in the “canvas cathedral” that shot Graham to national attention. Graham died at 99 on Feb. 21.
Graham’s son, Franklin, who leads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, delivered the funeral message from a pulpit that Graham used for his crusades in the 1990s. His remarks were parts warm remembrance, strict interpretation of the Bible and altar call.
“My father’s greatest longing has been granted,” a somber Graham said. “He’s in the presence of God.”
Graham recalled his father’s love of his late wife, Ruth, who died in 2007, his sense of humor and joy in his grandchildren. “The Billy Graham that the world saw on TV, and in the big stadiums, is the same Billy Graham we saw at home. There weren’t two Billy Grahams.”
But Graham said the late evangelist also believed in heaven and hell, and in the Bible as the infallible word of God: “He didn’t understand it all, but he sure believed it all.”
In an era of political correctness, he added, some “want you to believe there are many roads to God. It’s just not true.”
“Daddy, I won’t see you on this Earth again,” he ended, gazing at the casket before him, “but I will see you again, and maybe soon.”
Guests at the funeral included delegates from 50 countries, and ministers from the Middle East, South Korea and India took part in the service. Four hundred to 500 members of the media covered the event.
Graham’s own pastor, the Rev. Donald Wilton of First Baptist Church in Spartanburg, S.C., read Ephesians 2:410 as Graham had requested at the start of the 82-minute service.
Graham’s four other children and his sole surviving sister, Jean Ford, spoke briefly, mixing family jokes that made Trump chortle with tearful memories of their father. Ford gestured to the Graham homestead, which had been moved to the library and stood behind the podium.
“You’re here because you love him,” she said, “but you didn’t love him as long as I did. The president, when he saw me today, said, ‘My goodness, your family has good genes.’ Well, he didn’t know my name was Jean.”
Daughter Anne Graham Lotz, founder of the nonprofit AnGeL Ministries, remembered her father’s probing questions during the family’s daily devotionals.
“My mother taught me by her example to love reading my Bible every day,” she said. “My daddy, by his example, taught me to think about what I read.”
Said son Nelson “Ned” Graham: “I just want you to know that my father was FAT — faithful, available, teachable. May we all be that way.”
Christian singer Michael W. Smith, who sang Wednesday as Graham’s body lay in honor at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, sang “Above All” as he has at past crusades. Bishop George Battle Jr. of the AME Zion Church in Charlotte, a member of the ministry’s board, gave the closing prayer, followed by a bagpipe escort of “Amazing Grace.”
Trump did not speak to the gathering.
Tributes to Graham poured in from guests at the service and from around the world.
Pope Francis sent a message of condolences and respect for Graham’s years of ministry. “Upon all who mourn his passing in the sure hope of resurrection, Pope Francis invokes the divine blessings of peace and consolation in the Lord Jesus,” it read in part.