Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
Like his legendary father before him, American evangelist Franklin Graham has proven his desire to share the gospel outstrips whatever concerns he might have for his own safety.
This week, Graham announced he would deliver his 2022 Easter sermon from war-ravaged Ukraine. The sermon will air on Fox News at noon Eastern on April 17.
“I hope you’ll mark your calendar and plan to watch as we celebrate the reason for our hope—JESUS IS ALIVE!” Graham tweeted. “Remember to pray for the people of Ukraine.”
I hope you’ll mark your calendar and plan to watch as we celebrate the reason for our hope—JESUS IS ALIVE! Remember to pray for the people of Ukraine.
— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) April 7, 2022
According to a release from BillyGraham.org, the organization that bears the name of Franklin’s late father, the younger Graham visited Ukraine last month in support of two of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association’s ministries.
The Billy Graham Rapid Response Team has crisis-trained chaplains operating in Lviv while Samaritan’s Purse has provided medical care.
The Easter service will feature two prayers offered by Ukrainians and music from an 80-person Ukrainian choir.
“I will be sharing a message the whole world needs to hear: Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, conquered sin and death 2,000 years ago when He rose victoriously from the grave,” Graham said. “This Good News changes everything—for individual hearts, for communities, and for entire nations.”
The Graham family has a decades-old tradition of rising to advocate for Christ during times of national and international strife.
In 1952, Billy Graham famously toured throughout the units serving in the Korean War to deliver messages to American servicemen. This marked the Graham family’s first effort to share the Gospel in a warzone.
“It seemed that everywhere we went there was despair and fear and danger,” the Rev. Graham said of his trip, “yet every meeting … was packed with eager, enthusiastic audiences.”
The elder Graham returned to South Korea in the 1970s and drew record crowds – 3 million in less than a week – and was eventually invited as an honored guest to North Korea in the early 1990s.
Billy Graham paid two visits to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, witnessing to military personnel and the people of both Vietnam.
“My father felt it was important to go and minister to the U.S. Military,” Franklin Graham, said in a release about the creation of a documentary about the Vietnam trips. “He went to Vietnam not because he supported the war, he was going there to minister … to men that were dying on the battlefield.”
Beyond placing themselves in harm’s way for the sake of the Gospel, the Grahams also have a legacy of rising to the occasion in times of great consternation in the United States.
In 2001, Billy Graham was the man then-President George W. Bush requested to deliver a message at a special service at the Washington National Cathedral 13 days after the attacks of Sept. 11. In a chapel filled with the most powerful men and women in the nation, the words of a pastor born in a North Carolina farmhouse, a man unelected yet chosen, carried the most weight.
“[Today] we come together in this service to confess our need of God,” the elder Graham said during his speech, the full text of which is available here. “We’ve always needed God from the very beginning of this nation. But today we need Him especially. We’re involved in a new kind of warfare. And we need the help of the Spirit of God.”
Franklin Graham’s sermon in Ukraine will mark his second live cast on Fox News in the past three years. In 2020, at the height of the outbreak of COVID-19, the network broadcast a message that the evangelist gave from New York’s Central Park.
The reverend has requested that, in preparation for his Easter sermon, Christians join together in prayer that the Lord will, first and foremost, open hearts to the Gospel and bring about an end to the conflict.