The Rev. Billy Graham died Wednesday. He was 99.

Graham preached to an overflow crowd in New York City a few years ago and, given his age, health problems and frail appearance, it was obvious he would not be holding forth much longer. The TV images of this white-haired patriarch of the church, his piercing yet personal style of preaching, carried me back to the summer of 1960 — the year before my high school graduation. The evangelist was holding forth in Madison Square Garden, and I was there. A neighbor in Pompton Plains had reserved a seat for me in his family station wagon for the three-hour journey from the New Jersey suburbs, over the George Washington Bridge and into the bowels of New York City. How exciting for a 16-year old lad.

Although church and preaching and hymnals and camp meetings had been a part of my formative years, the Graham crusade was different. The words he spoke carried the ring of authority that comes only from the heart. Hundreds of sermons had passed through my ears in the past, but this time, in an arena holding thousands, the preacher was talking directly to me. He spoke with the pure sincerity, absolute conviction and convincing power of a person who believes every syllable and lives every belief. No hesitation. No notes on the lectern. No religious hogwash.

Hundreds got up from their wooden seats that night, walked carefully down the steep steps, and stood at the front to accept God’s gift of eternal life. I did not. Graham’s message had to bounce around in my head for another 17 years. But the seeds planted that night finally took root in 1977 while I was living in Denver. Finally, I got out of my seat. Sometimes it works that way.

Graham was a legend in his own lifetime because of who he was, and because of who he was not.

He was, first and foremost, a man who understood the Gospel. He preached the message of the Cross and then he stopped, having done his work of proclamation. He was faithful to friendships. He counseled and prayed with Richard Nixon during Watergate nightmares, despite the sharp criticism that came from it.

He was a man with simple tastes, taking only a working man’s salary from the ministry that bears his name.

Every account of his life tells us what Billy Graham was not. He was not an ego-driven, flashy showman in thousand-dollar suits who chased “donations” by day and another man’s wife by night. And there is a lot of that going around.

Graham preached at our daughter Elsa’s graduation from Wheaton College in 1993. For the most part it was the same message he offered in 1960. God loves you. God has made provision for you, and God is waiting for you to respond.

I wept.

Glenn Lambertz is a retired print and broadcast journalist who now writes on religious and social issues.