The meeting of Jesus and Nicodemus, the Pharisee and ruler of the Jews, carries with it a deep meaning for all time, for it establishes the scientific fact that man is born of Spirit and not of matter. Nicodemus caught a glimpse of the divine nature of Jesus' teachings, and he recognized to a degree that the miracles which Jesus performed were not done by human power. Yet he did not fully apprehend the spiritual import of Jesus' message, for when Jesus said (John 3:3), "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," Nicodemus inquired, "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus was trying to understand the healing power of the Christ through a personal, finite concept of God and man based on the belief that life, substance, and intelligence are in and of matter, and this erroneous belief necessarily included material birth, growth, maturity, and decay.
In an inspired article entitled "The New Birth," beginning on page 15 of her book "Miscellaneous Writings," Mary Baker Eddy states: "The new birth is not the work of a moment. It begins with moments, and goes on with years; moments of surrender to God, of childlike trust and joyful adoption of good; moments of self-abnegation, self-consecration, heaven-born hope, and spiritual love." Farther on she continues, "What a faith-lighted thought is this! that mortals can lay off the 'old man,' until man is found to be the image of the infinite good that we name God, and the fulness of the stature of man in Christ appears."
Full of transcendent joy is the spiritual awakening, or new birth, for it is the coming of the Christ-idea to human consciousness. It is the gradual relinquishment of the material sense of existence for the spiritual reality. False attractions and desires disappear as one gains the understanding that there is only one attraction, the attraction of Spirit, of infinite good. In childlike trust and humility we learn to surrender all human will, outlining, and planning, and to pray as did our great Master, Christ Jesus (Luke 22:42), "Not my will, but thine, be done."
