As I was reading the gospel of Mark this morning, I came across a familiar and baffling passage. It is just after Judas comes and betrays Jesus and the mob comes and takes him away. Mark 14:51-53 is given the auspicious subtitle "A Young Man Flees" but basically it states that a guy follows the mob and then runs away, leaving his linen cloth covering behind. Here are the verses:
"And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked." Mark 14:51-53 ESV
Thats all. The passage ends there and the next few verses deal with Jesus before the High Priest. It seems so random. It seems superfluous in the unfolding drama of the week of Jesus' death. Apparently some scholars believe this young man to be the apostle John. I don't know what reasoning was used to posit this however. But Calvin and Matthew Henry both agree that it is placed in the text to show how unruly the mob was. They are so out of control that they pick on a defenseless young man in order to humiliate him. This reasoning seems better than the John interpretation, but it still doesn't seem to make that much sense.
I thought of another interpretation that could be plausible. It seems to me that the point of the few verses that precede verse 51 is to show that everyone is deserting Jesus. Vs. 50 states "And they all left him and fled." The next verses are the one's about the young man. Perhaps the young man is one of Jesus' disciples who just takes a little bit longer to flee him. Perhaps he followed behind the crowd, interested in knowing what was happening to his Teacher so long as he was not identified. The moment that he was noticed, however, he ran away because he was unwilling to endure the same suffering as Jesus. I don't know if this is remotely correct, but it seemed to fit the context somewhat better.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I've heard some argue that it was John Mark himself, perhaps desiring to conceal his identity (for embarrassment's sake) while still telling the full story as he and Peter remembered it. That personally makes the most sense to me, but the suggestions you had also made sense.
I like your last interpretation, Gray; that's where my thought initially goes. This naked, fleeing youth is a powerful image of the extent to which Jesus has been abandoned and left alone.
Ahhhh....John Mark. Thats probably what Calvin meant when he said John in his commentary, but I just assumed he meant the apostle John. At any rate, Calvin disagreed with that interpretation and I agree that there is little textual warrant for claiming it was Mark. But even if it was, I think I could go with that because it shows that even John Mark ran away in the persecution of Jesus. This, of course, was to fulfill the Scriptures, but he is still accountable.
"...image of the extent to which Jesus has been abandoned..."
I like that, Eric.
Sorry it took so long to write this, but it took awhile to find what I had heard in one of my Christianity classes at UNL. (Disclaimer: Religion classes at UNL are not necessarily orthodox.)
My professor told us about how, in a Gnostic gospel "Secret Mark," there is a story that sounds very similar to the story in John 11 when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. After this unnamed figure is resurrected, Secret Mark tells us that the young man came to Jesus "in the evening ... wearing a linen cloth over his naked body" (Full story here). That sounds a lot like a description of the naked guy in Mark.
So, although I don't give any credence to Secret Mark, it is an interesting possibility that the man was Lazarus.
Then again, it was probably some guy in the early 2nd century who asked the same question you are asking, and then just made up a story to answer his own question.
Very interesting Jacob. We can, of course, give little credence to that interpretation...but I'm not really sure that we can give more to any other interpretation. I guess we just need to look at all interpretations and see how they would apply to us today...and then draw necessary conclusions.
Gray,
I finally found your blog. It's great!
Hope to see you when your back in town!
Layne
Post a Comment