IF you are a parent you may know the worry of losing a child. It may be in a large store or a park. Perhaps it is simply that the child has not come home at the time expected. Only another parent can appreciate the anxiety this can cause.

It begins with repeated glances at the clock and out of the window. Then you go outside to see if there is any sign of them. You go over in your mind the instructions you gave before they left. You consider what they said and any clue as to why they are late.

The mind begins to run riot on all kinds of possibilities which you dismiss. They are unreasonable. Common sense tries to convince you that a perfectly simple explanation must exist.

As time goes on and you begin to get sick with worry, you may seek neighbours to question. You may begin some kind of search. When the child suddenly turns up, however, the worry disappears. It is immediately replaced by anger. Relief gives way to a good scolding of the child and perhaps a good hiding too!

We know nothing of Jesus' childhood except for one incident when he was lost. There are many silly traditions and suppositions about his early life. The Bible is silent, however, save for this one event.

Lost in the Temple
Jesus was twelve. As the custom was, his parents took him to Jerusalem. It was his first opportunity to celebrate the Jewish feast of Passover there.

It was on the way home afterwards that Mary and Joseph first missed Jesus. They had assumed that he was with others of their party. It must have been with some horror that they discovered he was not.

Searching for a small boy in a large city is no easy task. It was three days before they found him. He was in the temple listening eagerly and asking questions. Mary at once chided her son:-

"Son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously."
Twelve years had led her to forget in that instant that Jesus was not Joseph's son. The reply was right:-
"Why is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?"
(Luke 2:48-49)

Not Lost - At Home
Jesus was not lost. God was his Father. The temple was God's house. Jesus was "at home" there. It was where he belonged. He was busy in his Father's business.

Scripture is silent again about the next eighteen years. It tells us only that Jesus was humbly obedient.
"Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them... And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men."
(Luke 2:51-52)

At around thirty, Jesus began his work for God. It was the age that a priest could begin work in the temple. Jesus' work would make him the only effective priest for the world. No-one else should bear that title now. The sacrifice that Jesus was to offer was himself.

Jesus was aware from a very early time of the need to die. He came to John the Baptist to begin his ministry by being baptised in the River Jordan.

Jesus had no sin to be forgiven. John felt that Jesus really ought to be baptising him. Jesus said his own baptism was necessary to "fulfil all righteousness". John and Jesus went down into the water together.
In this way Jesus began a life devoted to pleasing God. For him, baptism was a promise to do God's will. Even though it would eventually mean death, Jesus was promising his Father that he would do His will all the way to the cross.

Dying in Water
In the Bible, baptism is a symbol of death and burial. Obviously, therefore, it involves being totally immersed beneath the water. It is the way in which we die with Christ. Jesus said that anyone who wanted to be a disciple of his had to do this. We have each to take up the cross if we want to follow him. We have to die to the past by going down into the water and being buried in it. Then, a split second later, we rise to live a life devoted to God. Jesus has set us this example.

The first miracle of Jesus points the same way. He was at a wedding when the wine ran out. Jesus turned water into wine. That is what his life was about. Jesus was baptised in water to fulfil righteousness. Wine is a symbol of his blood. He died to do God's will. Fulfilling righteousness was the anticipation of his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, "not my will, but yours, be done".

Jesus gave his life. He did not only give it up by his willingness to die. He gave his whole life, every moment of it, to the will of God.

It was with this attitude that he went into the wilderness. At his baptism there had been the voice of God:-
"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
(Matthew 3:17)

With that voice Jesus had received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus was not like others whom God had sent. The prophets of the Old Testament had been inspired. They were moved by God's Holy Spirit power at certain times. They were made to say certain things, speaking God's word. At other times they were ordinary men, living ordinary lives.
Our Lord was not moved by the Spirit on occasions only. He was given the spirit to use as he chose. John said that it "remained" on him. Luke says that it led him into the wilderness. It was part of God's purpose, then, that Jesus should be tested.

In The Wilderness
The tests were all concerned with the misuse of that power. With unlimited resources at his disposal, Jesus must have felt those temptations keenly. He could so easily have satisfied his own hunger. It would seem so reasonable to do some heroic act that would make everyone accept his leadership. Why not use his power to assume world rulership and put everything right at once?

The answer was that the power was not for use for himself. Such motives would be selfish and sinful. He may rule the world, but he would then become part of it. He would be unable to save the world. Instead he would then be ruled by the world's way of thinking. Human thinking is the Satan, the adversary to God's will.

Sin needed a sacrifice. Jesus was prepared to sacrifice his own will to do God's. He was prepared even to sacrifice his life.
It was in this way that he answered the temptations. He used the Bible (our Old Testament). He looked at things from God's point of view. He brought his own desires into line with God's will. He fought self. He did not give in to sin. He used his power to glorify his Father.

Jesus found the right use of his power in the miracles which he performed. These were a witness to the fact that he spoke God's word.
"... for the works which the Father has given me to finish - the very works that I do -bear witness of me, that the Father has sent me."
(John 5:36)

Four Witnesses
Here Jesus shows that there were four witnesses to demonstrate that he was the promised Messiah:-

a) God's word through Moses in the Old Testament would identify him.
b) God's prophet, John the Baptist, had pointed him out.
c) God's voice at Jesus' baptism had acknowledged him.
d) God's power in the miracles proved it too.

The miracles which appear later in the New Testament are similar. They were done by the apostles. In reality, however, it was Jesus who was working through the apostles. It was his work which the apostles were continuing after the Lord had gone to heaven.

The miracles were a demonstration of the truth of what they taught. The New Testament had not been written at that stage. Someone may have asked how they could be sure that what the apostles preached was true. How could they know that what they said about Jesus was right? The apostles could demonstrate that God was with them by the miracles. God would not support impostors. Holy spirit gifts proved the truth of what they said.

Later these gifts appear to have died out. We only ever hear of the earliest apostles and Paul being able to pass on the gifts. They would therefore last only a generation after these apostles died. This is consistent with what the apostles said:

"But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away."
(1 Corinthians 13:8)

A Simple Test of Truth
If, today, we are asked about the truth of what men preach, we must test it by the Bible. The Bible was written by men who were themselves moved by the Holy Spirit. We should therefore treat with care and suspicion those who claim to possess Holy Spirit powers, today. Especially this is true if their teaching does not agree with what the Bible says. There are many who claim to be guided by the spirit but who yet differ from one another!

The miracles Jesus performed were done for a variety of reasons. Sometimes he healed because he had compassion on the sick. His heart went out to those who were suffering. Sometimes it was specifically to show the power and glory of God. Jesus wanted men to know and worship God. Sometimes it was because people asked to be healed in faith. Jesus was impressed when he found faith and trust in his Father.

Jesus did not say that faith was essential before the miracle could work, however. The failure of modern faith healers is often blamed on a lack of faith in those wanting healing. That was never the case with Jesus. No-one was ever half healed!

The miracles Jesus performed also proved his power and ability to forgive sins. What Jesus did for men and women physically, he can do for us in spiritual ways too. This is even more important.

When Jesus healed the blind man, it showed that he is able to help us see the way of salvation. Jesus healed the lame. He can teach us to walk - in God's ways. Jesus healed the unclean spirit, or epilepsy. He can help us put aside our unbalanced attitudes and foolishness. Jesus raised the dead. He is able to take away our sins so that we may live in God's sight.

The miracles of Jesus demonstrate his power. It is a power still by which he can help us. We need to come to him through his teaching and the scriptures. We need to ask his help in prayer and express our faith in baptism. We then can be healed. We can follow him. 