I first learned about Nicodemus, who came
to Jesus at night, from Pastor Robert Hickman at Montvale Evangelical Free
Church. That was way back in 1979 when I was 41 years young. At that time
Pastor Hickman was my pastoral counselor. I came to him by night because I was
working at the Pan Am computer center in Rockleigh, NJ during the day, but I
also needed to talk one on one, away from the noise of other people. In one of
my counseling sessions, I was attracted by Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus, “You
must be born again." I liked the
idea of starting over again, but of course I couldn't go back into my mother's
womb, so I listened to Pastor Hickman as he explained to me the Gospel of Jesus Christ
and the “spiritual” birth. At first I made jokes because, unlike Nicodemus, I
didn't believe in anything spiritual. I was a secular humanist; that was my 20th
century “religion.”
Secular Humanists, like John Dewey on whom
I had recently written my doctoral dissertation, had abandoned belief in a
spiritual realm of being - no God, no Devil, no Heaven or Hell. The only things
that exist are things that can be seen, touched and studied by the scientific
method. You can't study God that way so He doesn't exist. Mankind was my god
and science was my bible. That's what I believed.
When I came to Pastor Hickman I made no
pretense of being “spiritual” in any way. I had left home long ago, had not
married, and had chosen to live as a “rugged individualist.” I felt I didn’t
need “sustaining” relationships with anyone. I believed I was in control of my
own destiny, “If it is to be it all depends on me.” I had even managed to
realize my childhood dreams, of getting an education and traveling around the
world, without help from anyone except the secular establishment. I was pretty proud of my accomplishments. Like Nicodemus I was well
educated in the “religion” of my day. It might also sound like I had also
attained power and wealth, but that is not true; I was a computer programmer
trainee making $10,000 a year, and my personal life up until then had been more
like the Woman at the Well who encounters Jesus in the next chapter of John’s
Gospel, rather than like Nicodemus.
As I look back, I know the Holy Spirit had
been doing His pre-conversion work to convict me that my Secular Humanist
beliefs were wrong; my whole life based on those beliefs was wrong. As I
continued my weekly counseling sessions, confessing my sins to Pastor Hickman
and reading God's Word, the good news of Jesus Christ began to make sense to me,
I wanted to believe, and I prayed the sinner's prayer to receive Him into my
heart.
A few days later I was lying on my bed,
confessing my sins to God, especially my sinful attitude of ignoring Him all
those years, pretending He doesn't even exist. Then the Holy Spirit fell on me
with power, my whole body began to shake, bittersweet tears welled up from deep
within and became tears of joy as I felt God’s love embracing me, telling me He
forgave me and wanted to be a Father to me. He was teaching me, I didn’t have to figure everything
out by myself. I began to devour his Word, I was born again.
