Mark 14:51 Commentary and Bible Study

The disciples have fled, but there is one day who doesn't flee. ‘And there followed him a certain young man.’ A young man; the disciples were all thirty plus. How old was he? Well, he could be as young as 18; he could be up to 25 or 30. That is all within the compass of a young man, as you have it in the New Testament Greek. ‘Having a linen cloth cast about his naked body.’ A word is used in the Greek, which indicates the very kind of cloth that would be used for a funeral shroud, so it's a kind of heavy linen blanket or shroud. The best guess is that this young man had gone to bed. He was asleep. When he heard the commotion of the soldiers, and saw the lanterns and the torches, he knew or guessed where they were heading. So he drew over him such covering as he could in the haste of the moment, and followed to see what would happen. Some point out that it was linen and only the rich had linen in those days – rather than a wool cloth, a cheaper, coarser one – so it is suggested he came from a substantial family.Who was he? The church fathers used to think it was Mark himself, and they reasoned that this is only in the Gospel of Mark. The way it's narrated, although it doesn’t exactly prove the point, it gives you the impression that there is an eyewitness account going on. CH Spurgeon thought it was Mark, and he preached a whole sermon on the young man Mark, and took this text as his starting point, and made it a kind of character study: how Mark followed Christ. Even when the disciples, the eleven, loyal disciples fled, young Mark stayed in the place of danger – tremendous faith and allegiance – but then he too buckled and ran. Spurgeon's conclusion was that he was a true Christian, who started things with great enthusiasm and gave up easily. That certainly happened with Mark later on, when he was an assistant to the apostle Paul on a missionary journey, and he deserted. But then, just a few years later, he became the assistant of Peter, and he put right his wrongs and he became loyal to the very end, and so we have the Gospel of Mark, which is really the Gospel of Peter, and Mark wrote it down. Another guess is that it was the owner of that little garden of Gethsemane, whose house would have been nearby, and it was he who jumped out of bed, covered himself and followed the Lord. A slightly better guess is that it was his young grown-up son, and you could say he represents all teenagers who are marked out, who come to Christ, and who follow him. There is a youngster there, even at the time of that arrest, someone who had special light, who realised who Christ was and did not wish to leave him.Why is it recorded? Probably the fairest application is that this is recorded as a view of faith that has tenacity. The disciples were overcome by fear, and they fled. But here was one young man who stuck it out even longer, who stayed on post identifying with the Lord, ready to be with him, until the moment the soldiers got hold of him. It would have been certain death if he had been tried with Christ, and he wrenched himself free, and ran off into the night. So right up until death was staring him in the face, he held on. It shows also what would have happened to all the disciples, had they stayed. It was to their shame that they forsook him and fled, but this was the degree of violence that was coming. If they had not fled this was the degree of hatred that was exhibited in that garden.