A few years back while working in a fabrication shop in Boulder, I learned a trick to help find lost things. I was working with many parts on my workstation and inevitably something would always roll off my desk, landing in the dark depths of the floor. Perhaps you’ve experienced the same type of frustration. My friend picked up a tactic from a MIT graduate called “send a rescue team,” and eventually showed me the trick as well. If a bolt rolled off the table and he couldn’t find it, he would simulate the same process with a second bolt and watch it. While it may not land in the exact same area, it would give you an idea as to how far it went and then using the proximity of that, he could almost always find that which went missing.

I can’t help but think of Jesus in this manner. Through sin, God has lost many souls to their various desires (Is. 59:2). We’ve all been deserted in dark places with little hope to cling on to. That separation motivated God to send in a “rescue team.” The Hebrew writer states, “we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). We don’t have an exhaustive list of all the temptations Jesus endured, but we know they were many. Examples like Luke 4:1,2 show us that Jesus was not merely tempted three times but many. The text says “for forty days, being tempted by the devil” (present passive participle), meaning he was continually being tempted through those days.

By sending Jesus, God was able to have His presence with humanity in an effort to find the lost (Luke 19:10). He was able to see and feel the proximity for which mankind had fallen. His experience of the crucifixion was a tell for how wicked the hearts had gotten. Yet even in man’s darkest moments, Jesus was able to reveal a beacon of light for any who desired salvation. Jesus remains as our method of being found.

Tyler King