Mark 16:7

“But go and tell his disciples, and Peter, ‘He goes before you into Galilee. There you will see him, as he said to you.' ”

These words reflect Mark 14:28 where Jesus, to encourage them, had said, “After I am risen I will go before you into Galilee.” The words would act as an assurance that the one who had spoken of them knew words of Jesus that could only have been known by an angel or a disciple. When first spoken they were an assurance that they would soon return home where He would meet with them. Now they would know He was fulfilling His promise. We must remember that they still needed encouragement.

‘And Peter.' Here was confirmation that Peter was to be restored and take a full part in the future. (Had it been meant to indicate his superiority he would have been mentioned first). He too was to go to Galilee and be sure of Jesus' welcome.

The emphasis on Jesus' appearing in Galilee stresses the importance of Galilee in Jesus' plans. It was there that He had carried out His main ministry and there where the largest number of disciples could be found. It was natural for Jews to think in terms of Jerusalem as the centre of God's purposes, and to think of men flowing to Jerusalem in order to receive the truth, but the new way was to be totally unlike that. Jerusalem was no longer to be the centre of God's purposes. God's purpose here was to woo their minds away from Jerusalem as the centre of things.

That He did appear to His inner group of disciples in Jerusalem we know, probably because in their unbelief they would have been immovable (Mark 16:14). Promises were not enough. Once again their faith failed. But that His appearance to the wider circle (the five hundred at one time - 1 Corinthians 15:6) took place in Galilee as He had promised we must accept on the basis of these words, even though we would not appreciate from Luke's Gospel that there were any such appearances. Both Matthew 28 and John 21 testify of appearances in Galilee, and Matthew gives the impression of a specific place previously appointed where His great appearance would take place. The ‘they' of Matthew 28:17 clearly indicates more than the eleven of Mark 16:16 as, after the earlier appearances, it is doubtful if any of the eleven would have ‘doubted'.

It is not a simple matter to reconcile the differences between accounts of the Resurrection and the resurrection appearances. And that is what we would expect of honest accounts. They were written by different people using information provided by many who would remember what had struck them, and the events had been quite complicated with a lot of toing and froing. Each only had a part, a relatively small part, of what was a very complicated and intricate time and situation. They did not try to piece it all together. They presented the facts simply in order to concentrate on the main events and on what was confirmed to them by a number of witnesses. But facts are usually more complicated than they at first appear, for we are dealing with human beings and they do not just wander around thoughtlessly in groups like sheep. In such circumstances they make arrangements, they send one here and another there, they act individually as well as in groups, they make the facts very complicated. It would have been impossible, and unnecessary, to catalogue their every movement. What mattered was the basic happenings. And that is what Mark has given us here. (To do otherwise would have been to lose the main impact of the story).