Goodbye, Mr. Graham

I just received an email from my Alma Mater, Wheaton College, that Billy Graham has gone to be with Jesus.

I had to write because I recently finished watching Season 2 of The Crown, which is one of the best shows I’ve watched in a very long time. Like, I think sometimes Mad Men got to this level, and also Battlestar Galactica, but I can’t think of anything else in recent years that has been this good, all around.

The show is just good on all levels: set, costume, acting, production…the writing is the best part. Mr. Peter Morgan, I applaud you.

What I love best about the show, however, is embodied in one of its simplest scenes – between Queen Elizabeth and Billy Graham. It wouldn’t be so beautiful if not for the witness of Elizabeth throughout the first part of the series. We find her to be a solid rock – though everyone around her keeps trying to tell her she’s invisible; swallowed up by the crown. Again and again, I have found myself admiring this woman, and feeling thankful for her, though she’s not my queen.

In the scene I’m remembering, what you notice most is Elizabeth’s hunger, not for recognition or fame, but for a word from a godly man. You see, in the scene between Graham and the Queen, a kinship she doesn’t have with anyone else. It brought to mind the reports I had read of her words in the book she’s released on the celebration of her 90th birthday – that she is grateful to God for his steadfast love and that she has “indeed seen his faithfulness.”

It was a comfort to me to think of these two leaders meeting together. That they both loved Jesus. That it made them better leaders. I can only hope and pray for some more like these in the future.