Commentary on the Gospel of
Want to draw your attention on two small details that we find in Mark alone. We find a young man following at a distance at the time of the arrest of Jesus. He was covering himself with a blanket and when the soldiers caught him, he leaves the blanket and runs away naked! What is the significance of this curious and funny detail that Mark presents to his readers? There are two interpretations from the scripture scholars of the present day: First, the young man was Mark himself – in whose house Jesus and his disciples had their last supper.
The young boy – Mark who was getting ready for bed gets fascinated with these group of people who ate the Passover meal in his house and secretly follows them to the mount of Olives in the night. He just had a blanket on him because he was already prepared to go to bed. He thus became a witness to the events in the Garden of Gethsemane till the arrest of Jesus and then had to run for his life.
By presenting the story of the young boy running naked, Mark is signing his work – as if to tell his readers that he too was present at the scene when it all had happened.
Second explanation is that Mark is presenting a glimpse of the resurrection of Jesus. The body of Jesus was covered with a linen as it happens with the young boy who was covering himself with a blanket. The forces of evil that comes to capture Jesus the source of Life, believed that they have caught hold of him. But the torture, crucifixion and death could not contain the person of Jesus. All that they could manage to retain was the linen that covered his body. Jesus is Risen!
