We are Running Away Naked

When Jesus was arrested, not many people covered themselves in glory, but one person in particular wasn’t covered at all. The  historical records note:

And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.

This odd bit of history is only recorded by John Mark and so most scholars think the streaker was almost surely John Mark. When my dad named me, he handed out copies of the Gospel of Mark instead of cigars, more wholesome if a bit disappointing, but I don’t think he knew the mixed blessing this seemed to me as a young man.

Saint John is the beloved disciple and wrote the most profound of the records of Jesus’ life. The Greek is so beautiful that we studied it during my secular graduate education for literary excellence. John Mark’s gospel always seemed like comic book prose by comparison, Jesus is always doing things suddenly. If Saint John reads as the “word becoming flesh and dwelling among us,” then John Mark reads like the gospel of Biff! Bam! Pow!

Of course, worst of all, John Mark also runs away from Paul and Barnabas on a mission trip. When the going got tough, John Mark got going, though this time he appears to have been clothed. Arguing over whether to give John Mark a second chance split up the band of Paul and Barnabas . . . making John Mark the Yoko Ono of the early missionary movement.

This was not as encouraging as being Peter, named for the Prince of the Apostles, or Paul, the chief of the Apostles. Instead, I was named for the guy who boldly ran away . . . once naked.

Yet I came to understand a  bit about this greater John Mark as I got older. He had a Jewish first name, John, and a Roman second name, Mark. He was a reminder that “God is gracious” and a “Son of Mars.” Being named for both the true God and the god of war suggests a Jewish mother and a Roman father . . . conflict from day one. If my education has been anything, it has been deeply Christian and deeply Greco-Roman. I feel the tension, even if not so deeply as John Mark.

The interesting thing is that as he became redeemed . . . and stopped running away, he became known as Mark and not John. Perhaps this is because there already was a Gospel writer named John, but I think it more likely that this man who kept running away redeemed his Roman name. He became a man of spiritual warfare.

If Mars was a false god to the Romans, he was a false echo of a good reality. There is a divine warrior who battles for the people of God: Michael, the archangel. He is the true Mars, the untwisted image that the Romans saw badly. Mark was most unwarlike, but then so was Mars. Homer was the Greek version of this god crying and howling when he is injured. He is not a winner so much as a destroyer. He boldly runs away.

Mark started like Mars, but ended a god of war redeemed by the God of War. John Mark stopped running away and helped to spread the Gospel.

I think just now we face a choice, as John Mark did, between running away naked like Mars or allowing the John in us (God’s grace) to transform us. We can choose power unredeemed and surely find ourself naked and running away from defeat or we can be redeemed and become useful for service. 

Oddly, we become Mark by the grace of being John.

Just now, many of us feel a tension between our very real heritage as Americans and our patrimony as church children. Some of us have tried to stand up to power and ended up naked and running away. Some of us venture forth on a mission from God only to run away when the heat increases.

God is calling us to allow both sides of our nature to fuse: grace transforming our flawed American heritage into something great. If so, like John Mark, we can make our pagan heritage great. The man who ran away naked ended up writing a Gospel, covered in grace and the Glory of God. There is hope for us all.