pagecontainer 'change' produces unrecognized expression in jquery

pagecontainer 'change' produces unrecognized expression in jquery

I may not be doing this right.  I'm trying to change to an inline page with a parameter using this call:

$(':mobile-pagecontainer').pagecontainer('change', $('#messagePage?msg_id=' +this.id), {reverse: false, msg_id: +this.id});

And that call produces this error (which it shouldn't):
     
Uncaught Error: Syntax error, unrecognized expression: #messagePage?msg_id=18
    at Function.ga.error (jquery-2.1.4.min.js:2)
    at ga.tokenize (jquery-2.1.4.min.js:2)
    at ga.select (jquery-2.1.4.min.js:2)
    at Function.ga (jquery-2.1.4.min.js:2)
    at Function.a.find (jquery.mobile-1.4.5.js:1367)
    at n.fn.init.find (jquery-2.1.4.min.js:2)
    at n.fn.init (jquery-2.1.4.min.js:2)
    at n (jquery-2.1.4.min.js:2)
    at HTMLLIElement.<anonymous> (alerts.js:21)
    at HTMLDivElement.dispatch (jquery-2.1.4.min.js:3)

Having said that, what is the correct way to call pagecontainer 'change' and pass a parameter and to access that parameter?