Mk.14:51,52 – A young man was following Him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body; and they seized him. But he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked.
This is one of those verses that is easy to pass over but if you pause and reflect there may be more here than first meets the eye. The phrase used by Mark in this passage for ‘young man’ refers probably to a teenager, a secret witness to the arrest of Jesus. It seems a little strange at first, why was this boy naked wrapped in a sheet wandering around outside of Jerusalem in the middle of the night? What was his reason for being at this certain place at this very important historical time? Obviously this boy was Mark, the author of this gospel himself. Here are some insights from Barclay that might help us understand.
“It may be that Mark was actually present at the Last Supper. He was young, just a boy, and maybe no one really noticed him. But he was fascinated with Jesus, and when the company went out into the dark, he slipped out after them when he ought to have been in bed, with only the linen sheet over his naked body. It may be that all the time Mark was there in the shadows listening and watching. That would explain where the Gethsemane narrative came from. If the disciples were all asleep, how did anyone know about the struggle of soul that Jesus had there? It may be that the one witness was Mark as he stood silent in the shadows, watching with a boy’s reverence the greatest hero he had ever known….Whatever may be true, we may take it as fairly certain that Mark put in these two verses because they were about himself. He could never forget that night. He was too humble to put his own name in, but in this way he wrote his signature and said, to anyone who could read between the lines, ‘I, too, when I was a boy, was there.”
Apparently John Mark’s mother had a large home that the disciples used probably for the Last Supper. It also became the headquarters of the early church in the days ahead. Mark had witnessed the Last Supper and that important night of teaching and foot washing before Jesus and the disciples went to Gethsemane for prayer. Like any teenager would probably do, Mark slipped out after the family went to sleep, the rest of the story is history, the next thing you know he is running naked through the streets. The amazing thing is that Mark grew up to be a powerful preacher in his own right. He traveled with the Apostle Paul and later with Simon Peter. His gospel was the first one written, most of his writing came from the preaching of Peter. So maybe you feel insignificant like the faceless teenager sitting in the room, take in your observations because your testimony carries the power of God just like Mark’s did. Maybe you won’t write a book of scripture but you just might change your world, just tell your story and the Lord will do the rest.
2 thoughts on “RUNNING NAKED THROUGH THE GARDEN”
Oh, yes, a fresh, unencumbered voice that hasn’t been prodded by the disappointments sheep can bring. Yes, experience can produce endurance and we all absolutely need that, but at times some unwanted residue from those experiences lurk only to produce a less than satisfying reflection off of us. This should not come under the required fields to mark off.
Even today we too often follow at a distance, choosing to stay on the side in the shadows not wanting the spotlight. Some may remember the young man that used to show up at church in a Limousine, but few know that young man’s testimony. The feeling of God striping away the vestiges of the world’s covering, his nakedness as he ran to shelter of God’s alter and the covering that YeHoVah provided at Victory, that even today he still clings.