In those strange days before the stay at home order went into effect there was a sense of quickening in the air, a tension, like a guitar string wound too tightly and ready to break. My wife and I walked around a store, passing people who had to peer around stacks of toilet paper to steer their shopping cart. And it felt like everyone was just shy of breaking into a run, ready for anything, fight or flight operating just under the surface but with no one to fight and nowhere to run.

I doubt I’ve seen such evident desperation so inexpertly disguised.

In Mark 6 there’s a moment when there are so many people coming and going that Jesus and his disciples can’t even get a word together. They sit down to a meal and never have a chance to take a bite.

They try and sneak away, escaping into a boat. Jesus and his disciples head for a place where they can be alone for awhile.

But the crowds anticipate the move. It says they ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.

These people ran, they ran miles , a huge move of them, hiking up their robes and circling round the Sea of Galilee to get to where they thought Jesus might be next. They were desperate.

Jesus steps out of the boat, sees the huge crowd, and the bible says: he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.