First Presbyterian Church
Wichita Falls, Texas
June 14, 2011
Witness to the Resurrection
Graham B. Purcell, Jr.
(May 5, 1919 - June 11, 2011)
ON BOARD WITH GOD
Isaac Butterworth
Matthew 5:1-12 (ESV)
1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: 3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5 "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 10 "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Graham Purcell was on board with God. If you knew Graham at all, you know that. Bob Pierce, for many years the leader of World Vision, once wrote in the flyleaf of his Bible, ‘Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.’ And Graham knew that sentiment.
He knew that God’s heart was broken over the brokenness of humanity. Same as Jesus.
When Jesus gathered his disciples on a Galilean hillside to lay out for them what was on his heart, he began talking about people in pain -- his very first words. He started with poverty of spirit, and then he went on to mourning. We know what’s that about, don’t we? We know the pain of grief. Today we do. And that‘s the kind of thing that broke Jesus’ heart.
That and hunger and thirst and the things that come between people and create a need for someone to take the risk of being a peacemaker. These are the things he talked about in the Beatitudes, these first several verses of his Sermon on the Mount.
Graham was captivated by Jesus. He shared with our Lord his sorrow over the reversals of human existence. That, I believe, is why Graham took up law. Actually, I don’t know whether that was his motivation at first. But I know what drove him in later years. Sitting behind the bench never separated him from the anguish of others. Much of it, yes, they brought upon themselves. Don’t we all? But even those who stood before Judge Purcell because of their own folly were simply proof of what Jesus saw in people. Just a few short chapters after this one in Matthew’s Gospel, we read that ‘when [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’ (Matthew 9:36).
If you know Graham’s goals in adjudication, you know that he was never satisfied simply to see a crime punished. What he wanted was to see a criminal changed. Now, I do not mean that he ever spared himself the hard work of matching consequences to behavior. He didn’t. No one simply ‘got off’ in Judge Purcell’s courtroom. He placed due value on justice. But his eye was on your redemption. He saw hope for you, and he wanted you to see it for yourself.
And why was that? It was because Graham’s whole outlook was shaped by God’s. He was on board with God.
When God formed the first man from the dust of the ground, he knew that Adam would have many sons and daughters. But it was not his purpose that any of them should be poor or that any of them should have to mourn or be hungry or thirsty or risk their lives being peacemakers because others disturbed the peace. Poverty and grief and thirst and conflict -- these were all alien intruders into God’s design.
In fact, on the sixth day of creation, when everything was complete, we are told that God surveyed his work, and he said, ‘It is good. It is very good.’ And at that time, there were no poor, no mourners, no victims of hunger and thirst. There was no oppression, no persecution. That would all come later.
But it would come as no surprise to God. Before ever he created a thing, before ever he said, ‘Let there be light,’ he anticipated that things would go wrong. He knew, when he made Adam, that Adam would defect. And he knew that it would introduce into his good creation a host of evils that only he could address. Sin and, with it, fear and despair and injustice and death. Death -- that ‘last enemy,’ the Bible calls it.
But God wasn’t about let any of it take up permanent residence in his good creation. Before he called into existence a single living thing, he made a way to defeat death. That’s what the Apostle Paul says in one of his letters. Paul speaks about ‘the hope of eternal life, which God...promised before the beginning of time’ (Titus 1:2).
From the start, God said death would not have the last word; life would. At the very beginning, God said sin would not have lasting effect; God would.
Now, listen to me: Graham ‘got’ this. He understood. He knew what God is up to in this hurting world. He was on board with God. He knew it wouldn’t come easy. No more for him than for God. God, after all, sacrificed his only Son to right the wrongs done in his good creation. A cross stood in the way between him and the people he loved. That cross would have to be embraced. It would have to be endured.
And Jesus -- the Son of the Father -- was the one to do it. Willingly, lovingly, he took hold of the cross, carried it the distance, and rode it to the death -- his own death. It was the only way death could be overcome. Jesus could defeat it only by letting it defeat him. And when death had done all it could -- and that was quite a bit, really. When Jesus lay in death’s clutches three silent, lifeless days, he broke its grip on him. And, in doing that, he broke its hold on us. What was it the Welshman, William Williams, called Jesus? ‘Death of death and hell’s destruction.’ As another hymn writer, Robert Lowry, put it: ‘Death could not keep its prey.’ The resurrection of Jesus is God’s answer to every destructive force that has its eye on you and me.
It was faith in this Jesus that animated Graham Purcell. And it was love for the hurting people that Jesus loved that motivated him. And, listen: You don’t serve a suffering Savior and think it’s not going to require hardship and monumental effort. Graham knew that it would. He knew that God’s great reclamation project would ask of him the span of his life and more. But he knew it was the only way to invest a life.
It’s what took him to ‘the Hill’ in Washington. It’s what took him to the field of battle in Europe. It’s what made every human being from the gardener to the President important to him. It’s what generated his high expectations of himself. It’s what compelled him, like his Lord, to be a servant.
Nancy told me the other day that, not too long ago, she overheard Graham praying. Here he was, near the end of his life, beset with a failing body more than nine decades old, and what was he praying for? His country. Your country. Mine. He fought for this country. He served this country. He loved this country. But, like Jesus, he saw this country’s people -- people he loved, people God loves -- he saw them, ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.’
And what could he do? He couldn’t fight anymore. He couldn’t serve in public office anymore. But he knew that, as long as God gave him breath, he must do something. And so he prayed. He prayed for God not to abandon us or our country. He prayed for the people of this land, that they would rise up in full stature. He prayed for our values and the convictions that will sustain us. He prayed not just for freedom -- though that is one of the prized ideals of our great nation -- but he prayed for the responsibility that attends freedom. He talked to God because he understood and shared God’s vision for this world. Graham was on board with God.
In the Beatitudes, Jesus promised blessing to those who are poor, to those who mourn, to those who hunger and thirst, to those confront raging conflict with the possibility of peace, to those who are persecuted. He promised a blessing that would displace the curse. Then he himself embodied that blessing. He was God’s answer to human sorrow and anguish. He was God’s solution to human guilt and violence. ‘In him,’ the Gospel says, ‘was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’
It is that light that Graham reflected in his own life, the light of Jesus. It’s what made him a disciplined soldier, a fair-minded judge, a model statesman, a loving father and grandfather, an attentive husband, a servant of Jesus Christ our Lord, and an heir to Jesus’ promise: ‘Because I live, you also shall live.’ Death has no trophy in Graham Purcell of which it can boast, any more than it did of Graham’s Lord. Graham is in the arms of Jesus. He is, as he was throughout his life: on board with God.
