And a naked young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, buts he left the linen cloth and ran away. Mark 14:51-52
Have you ever heard this part of the gospel message referring to the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ? Because, I can't honestly say in all my years of celebrating Easter and hearing it's message over and over, I never have. And it has just been in reading these four accounts, that I have learned this.
Why is that? Is there a mystery here? Who was this man? Are those 2 little verses important to the story of Jesus? Is there are any more we can learn from this? Is there anything we can learn from it? Why was Mark the only one that reported it?
As you can see, I ask a lot of questions. Maybe some are important and some are not. But finding the answers, if I can, that is.... important to me. So let's see what we can find out about this part of Mark's account.
To see what was actually going on at the time, we have to take notice of the 4 verses immediately before that.
And they laid hands on him (Jesus) and seized him. But one of those that stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus said to them, "Have you come out against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day, I have been with you, teaching in the temple and you did not seize me. But let the scriptures be fulfilled." And they all left him and fled. Mark 14:46-50
And so, what have these 2 sets of scriptures have to do with each other?
We can conclude by reading the scripture that at the time, there was tremendous tension, anger, rebellion and fear going on. Among the people were the "higher ups" that were trying to stir them up. The soldiers standing there could have killed all of the disciples that were there with Jesus, if they had wanted to, after one of them had cut ff the ear of one of their own.
But Jesus had posed that question. Did that make them suddenly stop what they might have been thinking?
Verse 50 of Mark's account says that they all fled. His friends had deserted him. Every one of them. And then the incident with the naked man comes into play, and after that, Jesus is taken to the high priest.
Mark seems to be saying that they had deserted him because they had become afraid. Afraid for their own lives. They were with him for three years, but now that he was being arrested, they too were in danger.
They had just watched Jesus being seized. And next came them doing the same to the naked man. Would they be next? Is that why they thought they had better get out of there? And fast.
There was no time for thinking it through. They had to get themselves out of there and quickly.
Possibly this was the reason for the young man's appearance in this part of the story of Jesus. Maybe, and I say maybe, but not only that...but just maybe, the others didn't tell it that way so as not to make it such a big deal about the fear they had experienced. So people wouldn't see them as being weak. I don't know. Because we do not have any other information about it, we can only assume it could be that way.
But had you or I been there, we probably would have reacted in the same way. Afraid for ourselves even though we knew our good friend was in real trouble.
It will in no doubt remain a real mystery until we get to heaven and may then get to know the answers
Thanks for coming by today, Friends. God be very real to you and bless your day. Until next timel....
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