Who’s the Naked Guy?

And they all left him and fled. Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked (Mark 14:50-52).

The identity of the individual is unknown. Various educated guesses have been proposed with no definitive agreed upon solution. The most common modern opinion is that because this incident appears only in the Gospel of Mark, that it is probably the author himself.

However, his identity didn’t seem important to the Gospel author, since he makes no attempt to identify the individual, so I prefer to look at why this incident is included. It seems clear to me that the Gospel is showing us the total abandonment of Jesus by his followers at his greatest moment of need. They didn’t just strategically stand down before a larger group of armed men. No, they fled. And such was their haste to flee that one of them even ran out of his clothes rather than be taken with Jesus.

Can you imagine a more seemingly disgraceful and humiliating scene for Jesus? This makes the post-resurrection reconciliation of Jesus with his followers all the more meaningful and makes their future faithful resolve in the face of persecution and suffering all the more miraculous.