Naked, Clothed

Hovey has a remarkable discussion of the young man who is stripped of his linen garment in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:51-52). In the garden, he wears the linen garment of a martyr. But like the other disciples he is not prepared for arrest, trial, the cross. He flees without his martyr robe, and he flees naked, ashamed: “When the church cannot imagine that it might die that death, it not only ceases to follow Christ but does so exposed and ashamed.”

That’s interesting, but Hovey’s brilliant insight is to note that the young man, and his linen garment, return later in Mark’s gospel. Joseph of Arimathea covers the body of Jesus with a linen garment (15:46). The discarded garment is used as it should be, to clothe one who has gone to the cross. And when the women get to the tomb they find not an angel but a “young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe.” Clothed again, at the right hand of privilege, the young man tells the women to give the message to the apostles that the Risen Christ is moving on. His presence at the tomb is a promise to the church: “Despite having fled in the garden, the church inhabits the promise of being reunited with Jesus on the other side of death . . . . The church is not absolved of its scattering, having secured its life by fleeing; instead it is given another chance to lose its life” – another chance at martyrdom.