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My father is a pediatrician with a private practice in Beverly Hills. My mother is his office manager. They are both Jewish, both born and raised in Chicago.
I was also born in Chicago--on May 9, 1957--but grew up in Southern California where I now live with my wife and two children. I am a corporate trust administrator, currently on a medical disability leave. You see, I'm recovering from heart transplant surgery. But I had a "change of heart" long before my surgery, when in November of 1979 I sat in a synagogue and admitted to God that I knew Jesus was the Messiah.
The first conversation I remember having with God was when I was 4 years old. Mom prepared my brother and me for a new addition to the family by telling us to ask God for another brother. I went outside, looked up at the sky, and dutifully asked the Almighty to please give me another brother. We even named my "brother-to-be" Mark, and I can't tell you how surprised I was when "Mark" turned out to be Dana Michelle!
I thought about God again when my great uncle died. My relatives said that he had gone to heaven to be with God. I wondered briefly what that would be like.
When I was 10 years old, I watched my grandmother become very ill with cancer. I pleaded with God to make her better, but she died anyway. I didn't think much more about God after that. In my youthful estimation, his batting average was rather poor.
My lack of interest in God did not affect my synagogue involvement. My memories of our synagogue stretch back as far as the third grade. We attended a Reform synagogue near our home, and I began going to Hebrew school there twice a week. I liked the classes and did well, receiving the academic award for my class year. Before Hebrew school, our family celebrations only included Hanukkah and Passover, but once my brother and I began Hebrew school, we observed all of the holidays to help us learn about our heritage. It was fun to build the booths for Sukkot, and I loved twirling gragers and biting into gooey-centered hamantaschen at Purim.
We also attended Sabbath services, but when a controversy arose over the rabbinic staff, ours was among the many families to leave.
We joined a large Conservative congregation in West Los Angeles, where I became bar mitzvah in 1970. It was a beautiful building, with impressive stained glass windows behind the bimah. The Torah scrolls were encased in glistening covers of elaborately worked silver and gold. (My parents still attend this synagogue for high holiday services, though they rarely go to shul on the Sabbath anymore.) Most of the service was conducted in Hebrew, and I remember noticing that the majority of people didn't seem to know quite what it meant. I know my family didn't understand most of the prayers. Still, we found comfort in the synagogue because it was a tradition which provided an important sense of belonging.
After high school, I studied at Pomona College in Claremont, California. I took a course on "philosophy of religion," much of which was devoted to the Holocaust. By the end of that course I had concluded that God was vicious and capricious, a punisher of innocent people. I blamed God for all the world's evils and considered him unworthy of worship. A few Christians on campus tried to convince me otherwise, but they could not counter my accusations. As for my concept of the Messiah, it was completely unrelated to God. I imagined he would come when there was peace in the world; and if we wanted peace, I reasoned, we had better not rely on God to bring it.
I graduated from Pomona with a B.A. in economics and spent the next six months in the Army, training as a medical supply officer. Then I returned to Los Angeles, joined a reserve unit and immediately went on a two-week training drill.
That's where I met Captain Peterson, who was doing doctoral work at U.C.L.A. He asked me about Judaism and since I didn't want to show my ignorance, I answered as authoritatively as I could. When he asked me about the significance of the seven-branched candelabrum, I insisted that there was no such thing--that the candelabrum was supposed to have eight branches! In the midst of trying to answer his questions I realized I was being defensive because I didn't know about candelabrum and ancient Jewish worship.
Then Captain Peterson asked, "In light of the prophets, why don't Jewish people believe that Jesus is the Messiah?" I could not use my standard argument against God and religion based on the suffering in the world because Captain Peterson had asked me a very specific question. It was not a question which could be answered based on evidence seen in the world around us. It was a question about the Jewish Bible.
I asked to which prophets he was referring, and he answered with passages from Isaiah, Jeremiah and Zechariah. It seemed pointless for me to continue bluffing. By this time, I had become curious and wanted to find out for myself what he was talking about. So I told Captain Peterson that I would look into it and then get back to him.
I returned to Los Angeles and went to a bookstore where I purchased a black, leatherbound Bible. I read through the prophecies Captain Peterson had mentioned and I read the Gospels. My training in economics had taught me to analyze people's actions based upon their incentives. I began analyzing the supposed resurrection of Jesus in that fashion.
Who would have had incentive to take his body? The guards? No, they would not purposely do something which would show they had failed at their post. The Jewish leaders? No, they wanted an end to the whole Jesus business. The disciples? They must have been severely depressed over the death of their teacher, but that would not have been cause for them to spend the rest of their lives following a lie. They certainly would not choose to die for a lie; yet they were martyred for their belief in Jesus. There was no body in that tomb and no incentive for taking it, if indeed it had been possible to get past the sentries, which seemed doubtful. Thousands of people reportedly saw Jesus alive after his death. I concluded that it was more logical to believe in the resurrection than not.
Here I was, a nice Jewish boy who had just reached the conclusion that Jesus had been raised from the dead. I didn't know what to do. I went for a walk with my father and told him what I was thinking. He raised objections to the resurrection and suggested various solutions to explain the missing body. I had already raised each of these objections in my own mind, so I answered each one and repeated the conclusions I had drawn.
When we got back to the house a terrible argument ensued and my father told me he wanted me out of his house. I had no choice but to leave, and as I thought through my alternatives, I decided to return to Claremont. That was where I had received my education, and as far as I was concerned, the issue of Jesus was a matter of learning an objective truth.
I began spending time with a local rabbi. I even took a class he was team teaching with another rabbi for converts to Judasim because I wanted to make sure I understood the fundamentals of our religion. I also audited a secular class on biblical heritage at my old college campus. At the same time, I began participating in a Christian Bible study on the Gospel of John.
I was convinced, after two and a half months of comparative study, that Jesus was the Messiah. I wasn't sure how or even if that should affect my life. One Tuesday night, before the class for Jewish converts began, I asked the rabbi if he would open the auditorium of the synagogue for me. He asked me why, and I told him that I wanted to pray. He looked as though I had made a peculiar request, but he unlocked the doors for me.
I went to the front row of the synagogue and sat down. I simply told God that I believed Jesus was the Messiah, but that he would have to show me what that meant and what I needed to do next.
Two days later I was investigating an account as an auditor for a bank and met an employee there, a woman named Janice, who later became my wife. Janice had just given the bank her two week's notice, so if I'd delayed looking into the account, we never would have met.
I asked Janice out to lunch and somewhere in the conversation she mentioned her church. I told her that I was Jewish, but that I believed in Jesus. The assistant pastor at the church Janice attended happened to be a Jewish believer in Jesus, too. She introduced me to him, and over the next year or so I learned what it meant to know the Messiah. I found that God is concerned with our hearts. I had once thought the Messiah would come when there was peace in the world, but now I saw there could be no peace without him. There must be peace between God and his creation before his creation can be at peace with itself.
I was 22 years old when I accepted Jesus as my Messiah. Though I didn't know it at the time, it was the most important decision of my life. I discovered that through Jesus, I could have the intimacy with God that our ancestors wrote about in the Tanach. As I learned more about God, he became more and more important to me. Through recent troubles, I learned to prize my relationship with him above all else. And though I still cannot explain the evil in the world, I do know the goodness and mercy I've found in God.
By the time I was 28, I had a beautiful wife, twin sons, and a promising new job...everything was "going my way." My biggest complaint was the high cost of parking in downtown Los Angeles. In fact, I began taking the bus to work for that very reason.
I was detained at work one evening because of a conference call. When I hung up the phone I saw that I only had five minutes to reach my bus stop three full blocks away. With the L.A. bus system, I knew I'd be in for a long wait if I didn't make it. I was anxious to get home to Janice and our twin 14-month-old boys, so I sprinted the distance. I managed to catch the bus, but was unable to catch my breath. As I felt my heart pounding furiously, I chided myself for being out of shape.
I couldn't sleep that night because of the tightness in my chest. Within a few days, I had a dry cough and was terribly weak, especially in my arms. I had to use both hands just to carry my briefcase. That Friday, I went to an internist, where I was given a battery of tests. My problem was heart failure; a virus had seriously damaged my most vital muscle. I spent three weeks in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, then the doctors sent me home. They prescribed a year of bedrest, and then they would reevaluate the damage.
It only got worse after I went home. I couldn't keep food down and I was getting progressively weaker. I was readmitted to the hospital for more tests. The doctors gave me some drugs and sent me home again. Within a week, I was back in the hospital. I was dying. The doctors had to put me on the most powerful heart and kidney medication available in order to keep me alive.
On Saturday, July 27, my doctor told Janice to pack our bags. He wanted us ready to fly up to Stanford University Hospital in Palo Alto at a moment's notice. Stanford has the best heart transplant program in the world.
Hundreds of Christians were praying for me. People at my church were praying, the staff at Jews for Jesus were praying...and about a year's worth of red tape was cleared away in one day! Early Monday evening, my doctor told me I would be flown to Stanford by emergency air ambulance at 9 o'clock the next morning.
I had a steady stream of visitors that night. Their prayers and words of encouragement were a tremendous comfort. Avi Snyder, of the Los Angeles branch of Jews for Jesus, told me that I needed to decide now how I would handle this ordeal. I could grit my teeth and tough it out on my own, or I could focus every ounce of my attention on God and rely on his strength and wisdom to see me through. I decided on the latter.
I arrived at Stanford on Tuesday, and by Thursday my doctor told me that the only thing keeping my heart from stopping was the steady drip, drip, drip of the intravenous medication. They would try once more that night to take me off the medication, but it seemed likely that my only chance for survival would be a heart transplant. That would mean more examinations and two more doctors to determine whether or not I should be accepted as a transplant candidate.
I remembered the work God had already done in my heart, showing me that Jesus is the Messiah and bringing me into a personal relationship with him. I knew my heart was right with him spiritually. If he wanted to make my heart right physically, he would provide a way. I was ready to meet God, but I hoped for Janice and the boys' sake that God had another plan. And as I prayed, he gave me a calm sort of confidence that he would bring me through.
My doctor came back the next morning (Friday) to inform me that the attempt to take me off the medication had been unsuccessful. But he added the good news that more red tape had been dispensed with--that I had been accepted as a transplant candidate and given top priority because of the seriousness of my condition. Some people criticize doctors for "playing God," but I can't help thinking that God himself was with the doctors as they made their decisions.
By this time, there was a network of people praying for me all across the country. In addition to the people from the church I attended, and the staff at Jews for Jesus, my wife has relatives in churches all across the country, and even the Phillipines who were praying, too. All together, there must have been a thousand people asking God to heal me.
I called my parents and told them that I had been placed on the waiting list for a heart transplant and that they should fly up to see me right away--before I went into surgery. My parents replied that it could take a month or longer before a donor became available, and that they were coming up to see me on Sunday. I protested. I knew it usually took awhile before transplant candidates went into surgery, but I pointed out that 1,000 people were praying for me and I was certain that something unusual was about to happen.
Saturday noon the nurses received a call: "Take Scott Rubin off food and water, there is a potential donor." Again, I called my parents and asked them to come right away. But they knew the score. A potential donor isn't the same as a donor. Everything has to be just right in order for the new heart to be considered compatible, and there are usually some false starts before the actual donor is found. Again, I pointed out that 1,000 people were praying for me, and they should come immediately. They told me they still intended to wait until the following day.
At two o'clock that afternoon, the transplant surgeon came into my room to introduce himself to me. He announced that there was a 95.6% chance that I would be in surgery that evening. I asked him if it would be appropriate for me to call my parents and have them fly up, and he replied, "Absolutely!"
This time, I said to my parents, "Remember the 1,000 people who are praying for me? Well, I'm going into surgery in about 3 hours; I sure hope you can make it." My mother said she would hop in and out of the shower, dress in a jiffy, and they would be at the airport in no time at all. "Mom! " I said, "I don't care if you're a little sweaty. Forget about the shower!" She took the shower anyway, and they arrived at Stanford at 5:30. My surgery was running a little behind schedule, so we had about 15 minutes together.
I asked my mom and dad to promise that no matter how things turned out for me, they would carefully consider the evidence that Jesus is our Messiah. They only patted my arm and said, "We'll talk about it later, son."
I recovered from the surgery quickly. I was in the hospital for less than a month, and within 9 weeks, I was able to return to Los Angeles.
A miracle of science enables doctors to replace a heart that is dying with one that is healthy. But it is a miracle of God alone that he can replace a heart that is dead by virtue of separation from him with new heart that lives in communion with him. That is why the Messiah came--so that God could give us a new heart and a new life.
Update: Scott Rubin continues an active life as a heart transplant recipient. In the seven years since this story was written, he has gone on to study theology and to become the pastor of Congregation Tiferet Israel, a messianic congregation in San Francisco. Scott continues to lead the congregation and to tell all who want to hear about the "new heart" that they can find in Jesus.