What Fear Reveals
What coverings do I rely on for safety or belonging?
Mark 14:50-52
All of them deserted [Jesus] and fled. A certain young man was following Jesus, with just a fine cloth on his naked flesh. They caught hold of him, but he forsook the fine cloth and ran off naked.
In Mark’s telling, everyone runs. Even the companions who had walked closest with Jesus scatter into the night. Fear has a way of unraveling the courage we thought we carried. The fleeing comes quickly in danger. I have been the one who fled.
Yet Mark pauses to notice someone else. Not a disciple whose name we know, but an unnamed young man trailing behind. We are told almost nothing about him. He may not belong to the circle. Jesus may not even know him. That anonymity feels intentional. It leaves room for us to step into the scene.
Why did he stay when the others ran?
Perhaps curiosity held him there. Perhaps hope did. Or perhaps he simply could not look away while someone he sensed carried the truth was being taken.
When the soldiers grab him, he slips from their grasp, leaving his cloth behind and fleeing naked. The exposure happens in the running. Fear strips away whatever coverings we thought protected us, revealing more of who we are than we ever meant to show.
Perhaps the invitation is not to pretend we are fearless, but to notice what fear reveals when our coverings fall away.
What coverings do I rely on for safety or belonging? When fear has stripped those away and left me feeling exposed, what might it mean to look back at those moments and listen for the Spirit there?
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