Albert Einstein is generally regarded as one of the greatest intellects the world has ever known. Even today, more than sixty-two years after his death, his brilliance seems to border on the ineffable. And his name, perhaps more than any other, is synonymous with genius.

If you were to get me in a room and ask me what I know about Einstein, I'd probably say something like, “Well, from what I've read, he was smart—really smart.” I couldn't begin to explain his general or special theories of relativity or hope to understand how he was able to recognize the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics. I'm the kind of guy who has trouble programming his thermostat.

There's no doubt that Einstein was a revolutionary thinker with an extraordinary ability to understand and explain the world around him. To say that he had a prodigious mind would certainly be an understatement. But there's something about Einstein that most people don't know: Einstein was enamored with Jesus.

In an interview with the Saturday Evening Post published on October 26, 1929, Einstein professed his admiration for Christ when he said, “…I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.”

Not surprisingly, Einstein was captivated by the radiant Christ, mesmerized by the one who inhabits the pages of the Gospels. He couldn't turn away. In the “luminous figure of the Nazarene,” Einstein found someone worth paying attention to, someone “too colossal” to ignore. In fact, Einstein speaks of Jesus with such reverence that you'd think he was a devout Christian, but he never went so far as to acknowledge his belief in Christ. It appears that he was only an admirer, albeit an ardent one.

Look for more blogs like this one from Sandy Cove's Director of Development, Tom Ward.