He Meant to Pass Them By?

Secretly... there are a lot of things I can not figure out!

Mark 6: 45-52. Jesus compels them to get into a boat.

                         Then: he saw them laboring.

                         Then: he comes to them (erchetai).

                         Next: he would have passed them by?????

                         But:  they, all of them saw him....

                         Then: he encourages them ("It is I" ego eimi!)

                         Gets in the boat and the wind fell. They were amazed because they "did not understand about the loaves, for was their heart hardened."

I keep this old, falling-apart interlinear New Testament because it has notes from Synoptics class. This passage is highlighted and in the margin it says, Ex 13:14-19 (where Jacob asks Esau to "pass him by" (Esau, whose face was "as the face of God" to Jacob--and whom he feared). It also says I Kgs 19 (Elijah in distress is succored (sp?) by the Lord and then the wind passes by; giving way to the fire, and the still small voice); and Job 9:11 "He passes me by and I see him not; he moves on, but I do not perceive him...."

Now what do you make of that? The whole thing? The most I can make of it is, they were on the way but they weren't there yet.
He is divine (ego eimi); his coming is preceded by tumult; they don't understand--but they do see him!

What do you make of this??  And as my Rector David Buck would ask, "Where in the midst of what tumult that you struggle against, do you see the Lord passing by?

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