Marco 16:7

WHY ‘INTO GALILEE’?

‘But go your way, tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you.’

Marco 16:7

The angel first exhibited the wonderful spot: ‘Behold where they laid Him,’ and then immediately added, ‘But.’ That word is teaching. Do not stay in sentiment—pass at once to duty. Never let a thought of yours go to any grave you love without taking thence a call to some one practical duty.

Why did Jesus go to Galilee at all after His Resurrection? At Jerusalem He was crucified, at Jerusalem He rose, at Jerusalem He ascended. Jerusalem was the place of all honour. Why should He be so careful to go down to that northern province?

I. Because of the distance and difficulty.—It is a universal law that God always requires efforts, and always blesses the efforts He requires. You will not find your best privileges close to your hand. You must be content to go far for them. You must exercise self-denial, and labour to get at them. And whatsoever Galilee He fixes, He is gone before you there, and there you will see Him.

II. Because Galilee was despised.—He had put honour upon Galilee when He probably worked there as a boy, when He made two cities there His own cities, when He chose most at least of His disciples there, and gave the longest discourses there, and went up and down in their villages, and did His first and the greater part of His miracles there, and was transfigured there. And now He was risen and almost glorified, He is not going to pass by what He chose and what He loved in humbler life.

III. Because He would extend proofs of His Resurrection as widely as possible.—He carried His risen body, and manifested it into the two extremes of the land. It is true, after His Resurrection, Christ never appeared to the world, but only to His own, to the witnesses He had chosen. But those chosen witnesses numbered at least five hundred, and it is probable that very many, nay, the majority, were Galileans.

IV. Because Christ was true to all the finer sympathies of our nature.—Amongst those sympathies is the love of old, and especially early, associations. To Him there was no place, next to His own Jerusalem, there was no place like Galilee. And He had foreseen the feeling and made arrangements for its occasion. It was human, its was true, it was manly, and it was pure.

Rev. James Vaughan.