Who was the man mentioned in Mark 14:51 who ran away naked?
In Mark 14:51 we read:
Mark 14:51 A young man was following Him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body; and they seized him.
Mark 14:52 But he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked.
Though we cannot know with certainty, most scholars believe that the naked man in Mark 14 was none other than Mark himself. This conclusion comes simply because Mark alone recorded this odd story, and it seems to play no significant role in the overall narrative.
We know from Acts 12 that John Mark's mother lived in Jerusalem, and therefore we might assume that Mark was awoken by the commotion of the soldiers leaving the city during the night of Passover to arrest Jesus. The man was described as wearing only a linen sheet, which refers to the typical night garments of the day.
Presumably, Mark left his mother's home and followed the soldiers to the Garden. Once he was grabbed, Mark fled in haste preferring to be seen naked rather than to be arrested with Jesus. Later, Mark recorded the account in his Gospel, perhaps as a form of confession for having abandoned the Lord in this way.
