it was late. i was restless. he was one of those guys that loved these conversations.

see for as long as i could remember i always had angst when it came to the scriptures. i would sit in hebrew class and wonder what it must have been like to be one of the wanders. those of our ancestry who actually got to see the cloud by day and the fire by night. my mouth would water when our teacher spoke of the manna from heaven, and i would try to imagine what it must have been like to taste with my lips the very provision of an invisibly visible God.

i always laughed the hardest when their things to laugh about. when the stories of our faith consisted of big fish, naked prophets, extreme irony, and the consistent use of the useless. i would laugh. because sometimes if we are honest there are things to laugh about, and the truth is even when your dabbling in the deepest realm of reality their is always something to laugh about.

i remember he had a great laugh. i remember making him laugh once. that one late night, we laughed together.

growing up pharisee was not everyones dream, but it was a dream for me. i was always different. i had a propensity towards the scriptures. it was like I was born with a bend leading me to long for the truth. i simply could not get enough. i believed the scriptures were the truth and i knew that in them was the light of life, the messiah who was coming to redeem the world. i could hardly keep my eyes dry any time our rabbi would read from the scroll of isaiah in reference to the suffering servant who was to come. those were the days.

truth is time passed, and my work came and went, and i still enjoyed a good read of the law, but God knows, i was beginning to lose my wonder. i remember walking through town as i did most afternoons when a old friend from grade school came running towards me. we greeted and i asked if everything was alright. he said there was a man from nazareth named jesus performing miracles and healings and that he had the ability to see inside a man and speak answers even to their inner thoughts. then he looked at me deeply, took a quick breath to compose himself, his eyes beginning to glisten, and said "nick, could this be the one."

i must admit it was like something from my childhood flooded me with emotion and adrenaline and my mind began racing through the scriptures chasing down every prophecy i could think of. my friend and i headed out to see this jesus, this miracle man, and on the journey i investigated everything my friend knew about him. i was told stories of a virgin birth, a crazy cousin born of an old woman who now lived in the wilderness and was baptizing. I heard of a temple appearance at the age of 12, a temple clearing at the age of 30, a water into wine event in cana, and numerous other healings. i remember it being hot, i remember i was sweating more from the stories then the walk, and i remember feeling so alive.

when we arrived in jerusalem we walked through the temple and it sure enough had been cleared. it was a mess of smells, empty cages, broken tables, and men and women cleaning up what had been over-tuned. "zeal for his fathers house will consume him." it was all i could think of. the blessed 69th psalm being played out in the form of bird feathers array in the place intended for prayer. the temple was a wreck, but for the first time that i could recall it had a good feel about, like something holy had actually taken place their, and in came in the form of aggression.

i was beginning to like this jesus already.

when we found out where he was staying we showed up and their was a small crowd gathered and he was speaking some more things about the temple and of God. though the crowd was not too big it was still hard to see him for he was sitting down. some men where asking him for a sign from which to believe in. they were pressing him about what authority he had to do what he had just done. it was then that he stood up and i got my first look at him. it was then that he pierced into the crowd and said that they could tear down the temple and he would rebuild it in three days.

i remember making eye contact with him as he spoke those words. i remember hardly being able to breathe.

the crowd began to rant about how long the temple took to build, something about 46 years and lots of work and so forth, but all i could do was try to keep my feet under me and make try to keep my hands from trembling. i knew that while these men were speaking about this place of stones, this jesus was speaking of his body. he caught my eye again through the crowd, almost to say that he could feel that i knew what he was really speaking of.

i knew that he knew that i knew.

that night i lay in bed and could hear his words ringing in my ears. if he was speaking about his body, of his torture, of his burial, of his resurrection, then i needed to know more. i longed to know more. i rolled out of bed, grabbed a lantern and headed towards the home when he was staying. their was a light on but no noise coming from inside. as i arrived i taped gently on the door and before too long this man, this miracle man, answered rubbing his eyes a bit, but once his vision returned, a small smirk grew on his face, like he knew i was coming.

we sat down at the table and he spoke to me like i was a dear friend, like i had value to him, like he had known me all my life. i had so many questions, and here i was a master of the law myself, a pharisee in charge of many many of my people. it was like i was back in hebrew school learning and seeking and trying to hold back tears.

we heard someone getting up out of bed and that's when he said it. he told me that in order to enter the kingdom of God a man must be born again. i responded so quickly i almost felt ashamed, but shame was not a feeling you could have very long around this guy. i said how can that be, a man cannot re-enter his mothers womb, that is not possible, their must be another way. that is when he laughed, he put his hand on my shoulder and he laughed. so then i laughed, i put my head down a little and i laughed. we laughed together. i will never forget that. and i will never forget what he said next.

he said to me, nick, you are a teacher of israel and you do not know these things so i will tell you truly about them so that you may understand and you may teach truth to all who hear you. he told me that God is in love with all people of this world, so much so that he can hardly take the way we treat each other. so in response to us, he sent himself in the form of a human son that he might make right what has gone so wrong. that in the son, in me nick, all the law may be fulfilled and that whoever believes in this son, in me, will not face death but will instead be given the inheritance of eternal life.

he told me the history of our faith, he told me the future of our faith, he told me that he was the son and that believing in him meant that life lived following him would be so transformational it would actually be like a new birth.

i walked away from that conversation feeling more reborn then i had ever felt. i looked in his eyes and told him i believe. he told me i know nick, i've always known.