<p>6:48 <em>And seeing they were having difficulty rowing, for the wind was against them, about the fourth watch of the night he went to them, walking on the sea; and he would have passed by them</em>- The Greek strictly means that He departed, He left to walk over the sea to them, in the fourth watch of the night (Mt.). Mark adds the detail that &quot;He would have passed by them&quot;. This is often His style to this day- it's not that He plays hard to get, but He wants to elicit in us a sense of our desperation for Him. Likewise He often asked sick people what He could do for them, when it was obvious what they wanted. For the same reason on the road to Emmaus, He made as if He would have gone further- to elicit in those disciples an urgent desire for fellowship with Him. The same word translated &quot;passed by them&quot; had just been used by the disciples in saying that &quot;the time is now&nbsp;<em>past</em>&quot; and so the Lord should send the crowd away to feed themselves. The disciples likely realized that they were being corrected for their desire to turn away the crowds of people from the Lord; admittedly their motivation was poor, as the Lord seems to explain to them in John 6, but it was seriously wrong to turn them away.<br />Mk. 6:48 says that &ldquo;He saw them toiling in rowing&rdquo; and then, later, He went to them. He didn&rsquo;t literally see them rowing; but in His sensitive mind, He imagined just how it would be for them, and so He went to them.</p><p>Mark&rsquo;s account of this incident omits all reference to Peter walking on the water (Mk. 6:45-51). Yet there is good reason to think that Mark is really Peter&rsquo;s gospel; in characteristic humility, he emphasizes his failures and downplays his achievements in his Gospel record. Hence this omission of any reference to Peter&rsquo;s bravery may indicate that this incident places Peter in a positive light; it was a tremendous achievement, and he humbly declines to mention it.</p><p>Walking on the sea, Jesus &ldquo;would have passed by them&rdquo;. I don&rsquo;t suppose He <em>would</em> have done, because He was &lsquo;coming unto them&rsquo;, but this was how they perceived it &ndash; and thus the record stands written, from a human perspective. The same is the case with the language of demons.</p>