Everyone is searching for you
Gospel of Mark: 1:35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 1:36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him.
1:37 When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you."
Jesus often just disappeared without telling the disciples who had a hard time to find him. Their complaint sounded like a rebuke, that hey, everybody was looking for you!
Peter occasionally got it right, because it is somehow true that everyone in the past and present and future was, is, will be looking for Jesus.
Regarding the perspective we get from the Gospel of John, chapter one, the text says that In the beginning was that "All things were made through him. Without him was not anything made that has been made. ... The Word became flesh, and lived among us."
Thus, the search for Jesus is universal and omnitemporal.
The human search for Jesus is primordial. The mighty word God said in the very beginning, by which God created the skies and the Earth, became flesh, and the physical Jesus embodied the Word of God on Earth, made it visible and audible in himself.
As Jesus embodied the fullness of the divine spirit, the goodness, as we know it, the clarity of sense, the divine wisdom, light and spiritual power, showing up in the ordered time and in appropriate manners, so we know the God held up his part of his promise, and he sent the Redeemer to tramp down the head of the primordial snake. God promised that the Son of Man will trample down the snake's head. Thus, in all man made calamities, myseries, tragedies, bloodshed and wars, oppression, slavery, exploitation, alienation, the prayers were looking for the savior promised by God, from the very beginning of the human history.
Although we also know that the Word of God became flesh when Herod the Edomite was King in Jerusalem, and August Octavian ruled as Emperor Caesar in Rome, still we have to pay full attention to the testimony of John the Baptist, as "He cried out, saying, 'This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me has surpassed me, for he was before me.' "
When in the Gospel of John, chapter eight, "The Jews therefore said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus also declared about himself, "Most assuredly, I tell you, before Abraham was born, I AM.”
It is strange but logical, that when the scribes heard this, they grabbed stones to stone him, because they understood that this statement exactly meant, that the Word of God became flesh in him. They thought that this is a blasphemous declaration from an impostor, they did not even imagine that it might have been actually true. The universality of the Word of God, made all seekers of spiritual enlightenment practically looking for Jesus the word in flesh on any continent in any given time, even if they never heard about the Gospel.
The universality of the Son of Man makes all souls, who suffer, look for the Redeemer, empowered by God, who can bring Redemption and Salvation to all nations, but also in local and particular situations, like the redemption and the salvation of a single soul.
Jesus, himself, promised, in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, "For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened."
However, we have to make a distinction of finding Jesus externally or actually. It happened that the twelve year old Jesus was taken by his parents to Jerusalem, and his parents lost him in the festival- celebrating- crowd. They found him surrounded by scribes and Torah teachers, having a mindful conversation.
The parents found their child, as it is written in the Gospel of Luke chapter 2, "... after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them, and asking them questions." His mother was quite upset and when they saw him, ..." his mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us this way? Behold, your father and I were anxiously looking for you."
They found Jesus, but they did not understand him, thus the 12 years old child had to declare, to them, "Why were you looking for me? Didn't you know that I must be in my Father's house?"
Jesus could have answered Peter and the disciples with the same statement, when they were lamenting, that where were you? Everybody is looking for you! The answer is the same. Why were you looking for me? You should have known, what I was doing, without asking, that I must have been busy listening to our Father.
It was quite an incident when Jesus appointed his disciples, he had quite a crowd of followers, and when his friends heard it, they came to him to lay hold on him, saying that he is out his mind, he went insane.
Maybe they said it or did that, because there were there some scribes from Jerusalem accusing him of being possessed by the Baal-Zebub, whose power helped Jesus to cast out demons.
Thus we had two groups who found Jesus in vain, his friends, who did not understand him, and the scribes accusing him with black magic wizardry, which was a capital offense at that time, punishable by stoning to death.
Quite a scenery and a quite a dangerous situation. Then the third group was arriving at the scene, his mother and his siblings. Possibly to take him out of danger, but also probably misreading his actions.
Someone reported to Jesus, that his mother and his siblings are there to talk to him.
As it is written that "a multitude was sitting around him, and they told him, 'Behold, your mother, your brothers, and your sisters are outside looking for you. ' "
Then Jesus declared to the crowd, looking around at those who sat around him, that "Behold, these are my mother and my siblings.
For whoever may do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother."
Many wanted to find Jesus, but as the Kingdom of God is invisible, so is the Crown Prince of the Kingdom. Even when somebody found the physical Jesus at that particular time he walked on Earth, that was not necessarily the desired meeting with Jesus, when somebody finds the Prince of Peace by faith.
That is why said the resurrected Jesus to the Apostle Thomas, in the Gospel of John , chapter 20, "Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed."
Whenever, we keep the commandments, we stick to the truth and we pray to God from the fullness of the heart we find Jesus by faith. Whenever we feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, house the homeless, clothe the unclad, whenever we comfort the heartbroken, elevate the oppressed, help the unjustly persecuted, we find Jesus by faith.
Many are waiting for Jesus to come back visibly, but it must be clear, that we have to find Jesus in order to merit his coming, as it is written in the letter of James, "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. " AMEN
