Naked Guy

It's snowing hard so obviously my mind wandered to the naked guy I ran into cross country skiing a couple of years ago and then it immediately went to Mark's Gospel. 

Welcome to my brain.

I love Mark's Gospel, not only because it is short, but he is an amazing story teller and he has my favorite quirky detail.

These stories about the young man are unique to Mark:

All of them deserted (Jesus) and fled.  A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.  Mark 14:50-52 (NRSV)

As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.  Mark 15:5-6 (NRSV)

Mark’s Gospel doesn’t have a birth story, but it has one of my favorite redemption stories.

 

A naked young man runs off in fear and shame. Our lives might not be quite that graphic, but there are moments. There are moments when we are revealed for our courage or fear, our faithfulness or betrayal. Vulnerable moments. That is one of the many things I love about being a pastor. It is our honor to catch glimpses of those moments in your lives, which always force me to be honest about my own vulnerabilities. Moments of sickness, new life, fears, longings, failures, hopes, addictions, divorces, marriages. All those times when our lives are stripped to their core.

That’s who he is in this story. He is all of us. All of us who seek to be faithful, to follow, but so often fail and fall away, stripped of excuses, protections, lies. That is us in our moments of humiliation when we thought this story would be different, we would be the hero, the one who succeeded, the one who stood up to the Roman empire to do the right thing, but instead high tail it in the other direction. It’s an embarrassing story.

Then on Easter we hear of a young man dressed in white linen and the tomb is empty. Hopefully you can hear the good news and joy of Jesus’ resurrection - death is defeated, the love of God is the future for all creation, you do not need to fear suffering or death, you may stand against the powers of evil because the life and love of God is eternal.

But I also want you to hear the good news of the naked young man who ran off and now is sitting clothed in the tomb - the first messenger of hope and new life. It's not an angel in Mark's gospel; it's a young man dressed in a white robe. 

That's why I love naked man stories.