He had been listening to a Billy Graham crusade and contacted a famous evangelist (I don’t recall who) asking if Jesus could also accept someone like him. The evangelist communicated with him several times (the letters are public) and John wrote in his diaries that he had become a born again Christian. He was even taking his son, Sean, to Sunday School. John had always had a fascination with Jesus and Christianity, but he seemed to have always tried to push it away with both hands. Most people misunderstand his Beatles more popular than Jesus quote. He was astonished at it, and commented that his band was becoming more important in society than Jesus (which was true). Everyone took it the wrong way. If you have look at the video of him trying to explain, you can see how upset he was. When someone asked him about Imagine, he said, “It’s just a song.” Unfortunately, John began to go wobbly under pressure from his wife and friends.
That is really cool. John seemed like a really conflicted guy who at least publicly and in his music berated “possessions and religion too”. He didn’t seem to care for people too much either - at least in the lyrics of some of his songs. But God is in the business of “justifying the ungodly”.
I am so gratified to hear that maybe he actually received Jesus into his heart. I think there’ll be a lot of surprised people in Heaven when we see people who we thought wouldn’t be there. Looking forward to it.