Into the Wilderness
“Where is Jesus?” I feel as though we know this question all too well sometimes in our life. There are times in our life where maybe you have asked that same question. As we are in a season of lent, and walking through the wilderness with Jesus leading up to Easter, this is a question I have found myself asking a lot. It’s a question that is indirectly associated with Jesus' baptism. In Matthew, during the baptism of Jesus we are met with a beautiful and extravagant moment with Jesus and God. The moment God said “This is my son” and the Spirit descended on Jesus. With the disciples present in this moment, this was even more so of an eye-opening experience with them as well.
But then, Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days. Reading between the pages, I am curious if the disciples ever asked each other “where is Jesus?” I mean, how could they lose the Messiah? That would be so embarrassing to walk up to someone and say “have you seen Jesus the Messiah?” and then for them to just say back to you “You lost Jesus?”
Truthfully, sometimes I feel like the disciples though. I have a beautiful eye-opening experience with Jesus, and then all of a sudden I am asking that same question to myself, “Where is Jesus?”, “Did I lose him?”.
There have been times where I feel as though everything has been stripped away and I have nothing left. However, we see multiple times in the bible where we are called to seek after Jesus, but how can we seek something if we have never lost it?
2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
The fact is this friends, we can oftentimes fall to false gods. Take for example the passage of Exodus 32. As Moses was on top of the mountaintop with Jesus, the rest of the people of Israel, after being delivered from Egypt, began to worship false gods. It can be easy for us to turn to false gods even today. Things like popularity, identity in worldly things, relationships, friendship, work, and even our own faith. That last one might have stunned you, but it is possible to lose Jesus within your own faith. When I was in high school, I lost Jesus to faith because I tried to do everything under the sun for Jesus and be the “good church girl” Ultimately, the church became my biggest battlefield. It was when I lost Jesus in that moment, that I began to seek him, and finally found him again.
“Seek and you will find”. When we lose Jesus, it is not a forever thing, he promises us that we WILL find him when we seek after him with all of our heart.
As we come up on the one month mark before Easter, let’s lose Jesus and seek after him, because we will find him in all the joy and love that he provides.
