Matthew 28:10

‘Then says Jesus to them, Do not be afraid. Go, tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee, and there will they see me.”

Jesus then repeats the message of the angel. They are to tell the disciples and all who are believers (my brethren, compare Matthew 12:48) to leave Jerusalem and go to Galilee, where they too will see Him. At this stage Jesus is still looking to the disciples to obey Him. It is difficult to believe that at this point (from a human point of view) He is intending to appear to His Apostles that very night. The alteration in plan took place because of their steadfast unbelief. That is not, of course, to deny that in His sovereignty He knew what was going to happen, simply to indicate that that was how He wanted it to be seen.

‘Do not be afraid.' What the women were experiencing was undoubtedly awesome in the fullest sense of the word. First a glorious angel and an empty tomb, then a message that Jesus would soon appear to all His disciples, and now the actual appearance of the One Whom they had watched die on a cross. No wonder that there was a kind of fear and awe gripping them in the midst of their joyfulness.

‘Depart into Galilee, there will they see Me.' Men must no longer look to Jerusalem but to Him, and He is not bound up in Jerusalem. The importance of Galilee came out from the start. It was in Galilee that Jesus took refuge on His return from exile (Matthew 2:22). It was in Galilee that the people who sat in darkness would see a great light (Matthew 4:16). It was in Galilee that He carried out His main ministry (Matthew 4:23) and established a large band of disciples. At the crisis point of His life Jesus was declared to be a Galilean (Matthew 26:69). Thus Matthew saw Galilee, ‘Galilee of the Gentiles', as the starting point of the future. And he did it on Jesus' authority. That was where Jesus was really to be seen.