“I’m a mountain hillbilly,” Billy Graham said of himself two Sundays ago before beginning his sermon at Harvard University’s Memorial Church. In the course of his skilled delivery, however, he showed how outdated this self-definition really is.

This best-known of the world’s evangelists is clearly a master of the spoken language.  His Bible-based preaching held in rapt attention members of the jam-packed congregation, both old and young.

Burdened by Parkinson’s Disease at eighty years of age, Rev. Graham is no longer steady on his feet. His voice, however, remains strong and his spirit vibrant. He still stands tall and speaks forcefully using only simple gestures.

And he finds personal strength in thinking about the world to come. “I’m looking forward to the future with tremendous anticipation,” he assured his listeners.

He also sprinkles his talks with humor. He told some undergrads who, to make sure they got a seat, stayed overnight on the church’s front porch: “You’re free to go asleep now.”

Of the Country Club in Brookline where the Ryder Cup tournament was recently played, this avid golfer quipped: “I played that course and almost lost my religion.”

People often write to Billy Graham asking if there is any hope. This is a time when people are desperately searching, he says. “They are searching for they know not what. They never really find an answer until they find it in God.”

The question that this famous preacher puts to everyone is simple: “Have you been born again?” Reborn is what happened to him as a teenager back in North Carolina; that’s when his own life was transformed. When the traveling preacher asked this question, young Billy felt moved to step forth and things for him were never the same again.

Preaching now, over sixty years later, Rev. Graham chose as his subject “The Real Meaning of the Cross.” His text came from Galatians: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”

To Rev. Graham’s regret, the cross has become for many people nothing more than an ornament. It is often a design used in costume jewelry and in decorative art.

But this is to ignore the cross’s true meaning. In Rev. Graham’s faith, the cross

1) reveals the depth of human sin; 2) shows us the love of God; and 3) stands as the only way of salvation.

In this evangelist’s eyes, the cross is the sign of the suffering that Jesus endured for the world. His real suffering was not merely physical. God placed on him the sins and evils of all of us. As the Bible says, “he became sin.”

Rev. Graham finds in the Good Thief, the criminal who hung on a cross next to Jesus, the greatest faith in all the Bible. He was the one who turned to Jesus and said, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” This prayer merited the response from Jesus, “This day you will be with me in paradise.”

So sure of the way of the Cross is Rev. Graham that he shares with his listeners this promise: “You’ll find a life you never knew existed.”

To the young people present, Rev. Graham applied the God’s law to sexuality. If you keep this law, he promised, “there is no thrill such as when you come to your marriage bed.”

Billy Graham’s basic message is consistent: Jesus Christ is the solution to human problems. His formula for what a person needs to do to prepare for the future comes in three parts: 1) admit to God that you have sinned; 2) turn away from what is wrong; 3) turn to the cross of Jesus.

Among the many stories he shared with listeners was one about a little boy who got lost in London. A police officer who found the boy asked where he lived. The boy, however, could not remember the names of streets near his home. Finally, the child recalled that there was a church nearby with a cross on top.

The moral of the story according to the evangelist? “Take me to the cross and I can find my way home from there.”

Richard Griffin