Mark 14:51-52

And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.

Haste in religion

It strikes me that this “certain young man” was none other than Mark himself. He was probably asleep; and, aroused by a great clamour, he asked what it was about. The information was speedily given-“The guards have come to arrest Jesus of Nazareth.” Moved by sudden impulse, not thinking of what he was doing, he rises from his bed, rushes down, pursues the troopers, dashes into the midst of their ranks, as though he alone would attempt the rescue, when all the disciples had fled. The moment they lay hold upon him his heroic spasm is over; his enthusiasm evaporates; he runs away, leaves the cloth that was loosely wrapped about his body behind, and makes his escape. There have been many who acted like Mark since then. First, however, you will say, “Why suppose it to be Mark?” I grant you it is merely a supposition, but yet it is supported by the strongest chain of probabilities. It was common among the evangelists to relate transactions in which they themselves took part without mentioning their own names. Whoever it was, the only person likely to know it was the man himself. I cannot think that anyone else would have been likely to tell it to Mark. Again, we know that such a transaction as this was quite in keeping with Mark’s common character: the evangel of Mark is the most impulsive of all the evangels. He is a man who does everything straightway; full of impulse, dash, fire, flash; the thing must be done, and done forthwith. Once more: the known life of John Mark tends to make it very probable that he would do such a thing as is referred to in the text. As soon as ever Paul and Barnabas set out on their missionary enterprise they were attended by Mark. As long as they were sailing across the blue waters, and as long as they were in the island of Cyprus, Mark stuck to them. Nay, while they travelled along the coast of Asia Minor, we find they had John Mark to be their minister; but the moment they went up into the inland countries, among the robbers and the mountain streams-as soon as ever the road began to be a little too rough, John Mark left them. His missionary zeal had oozed out. For these reasons, the supposition that it was John Mark appears to me not to be utterly baseless.

I. Here is hasty following. John Mark does not wait to robe himself, but just as he is, he dashes out for the defence of his Lord. Without a moment’s thought, taking no sort of consideration, down he goes into the cold night air to try and deliver his Master. Fervent zeal waited not for chary prudence. There was something good and something bad in this, something to admire as well as something to censure. Beloved, it is a good and right thing for us to follow Christ, and to follow Him at once; and it is a brave thing to follow Him when His other disciples forsake Him and flee. Would that all professors of religion had the intrepidity of Mark! The most of men are too slow; fast enough in the world, but, ah! how slow in the things of God! Of all people that dilly-dally in this world, I think professed servants of God are the most drowsy and fuddling. How slothful are the ungodly, too, in Divine things; tell them they are sick, they hasten to a surgeon; tell them that their title deeds are about to be attacked, and they will defend them with legal power; but tell them, in God’s name, that their soul is in danger, and they think it matters so little, and is of so small import, that they will wait on, and wait on, and wait on, and doubtless continue to wait on till they find themselves lost forever. The warnings of the gospel all bid you shun procrastination. I do beseech you fly to Jesus, and fly to Jesus now, though even it should be in the hurry of John Mark. I change my note. There is a haste that we most reprove. The precipitate running of Mark suggests an admonition that should put you on your guard. I am afraid some people make a hasty profession through the persuasion of friends. Nor are there a mere few who get their religion through excitement. This furnishes another example of injudicious haste. Many profess Christ and think to follow Him without counting the cost. They had never sought God’s strength; they had never been emptied of their own works and their own conceits; consequently, in their best estate they were vanity; they were like the snail that melts as it crawls, and not like the snowflake upon the Alps, which gathers strength in its descent, till it becomes a ponderous avalanche. God make you not meteors or shooting stars, but stars fixed in their places. I want you to resemble, not the ignis fatuus of the morass, but the steady beacon of the rock. There is a phosphorescence that creeps over the summer sea, but who is ever lighted by it to the port of peace? And there is a phosphorescence which comes over some men’s minds. Very bright it seems, but it is of no value; it brings no man to heaven.

II. It remains for me to notice the hasty running away. Some who run well at first have hardly breath enough to keep the pace up, and so turn aside for a little comfortable ease, and do not get into the road again. There are two kinds of desertion which we denounce as hasty running away; the one temporary, the other final. Think what a fool Mark made of himself. Here he comes; here is your hero. What wonders he is going to do! Here is a Samson for you. Perhaps he will slay his thousand men. But, no; he runs away before he strikes a single blow. He has not even courage enough to be taken prisoner. How everybody in the crowd must have laughed at the venturesome coward-at the dastardly bravo! Therefore abstain from these inconsistencies for your own character’s sake. Besides, how much damage you do the Church! And think what must be the dying bed of an apostate. Did you ever read of “the groans of Spira”? That was a book circulated about the time of the Reformation-a book so terrible that even a man of iron could scarcely read it. Spira knew the gospel, but yet went back to the Church of Rome. His conscience woke on his dying bed, and his cries and shrieks were too terrible to be endured by his nurses; and as to his language, it was despair written out at full length in capital letters. My eminent predecessor, Mr. Benjamin Keach, published a like narrative of the death of John Child, who became a minister of the gospel, but afterwards went back to the Church from which he seceded, and died in the most frightful despair. May God deliver you from the death bed of any man who has lived a professed Christian, and dies an apostate from the faith! But what must be the apostate’s doom when his naked soul goes before God? (C. H. Spurgeon.)