“He is going ahead of you…”

Tour guides — where would be without them?  Lost, probably.  Or at least slower to arrive at our destinations.  What would we do without them?  Probably ask for directions, if you’re a typical female or an atypical male.  Continue to stay lost and increase your stress level if you’re a typical male.  But there’s nothing like a native — or someone who knows the lay of the land like a native — that greases the slide and makes our trip more enjoyable and relaxing.  That’s what tour guides do: take their expertise and turn it into profitable gain while steering guests through unfamiliar territory.

While we wouldn’t suggest that Jesus is your typical tour guide, there are enough parallels between them to see a similarity.  Tour guides definitely “go ahead of you”.  On the contrary, of course, Jesus had no financial incentive and received no money for his going ahead of us.  But the tour guide knows what’s coming, what to see, what to avoid, the best ways to move around the country, the best restaurants to eat in, and the most scenic and fun places to visit.  Ponder that for our spiritual lives.

The context is telling.  The city: Jerusalem.  The time: resurrection morning.  The scene: the cemetery.  The characters: the women and the disciples.  Jesus had arisen a few hours earlier.  The women, on the way to the tomb, realize that they can’t roll away the stone (Mark 16:3).  As they draw close, they see the tomb is already open.  On entering it they find “a young man dressed in a white robe” (v. 5) who tells them that Jesus has risen.  He adds, “He is going ahead of you into Galilee.  There you will see him, just as he told you” (v. 6).

Naturally, the women are shocked into eerie silence, then race back to the upper room and report this to the disciples.  The disciples, after hearing from Mary Magdalene and two others who saw Jesus, “did not believe it” (vs. 11, 13).  It was just too much, too fast, too incredible to believe.

In moments like these — incredible, crazy, shocking moments — some stuff just blows right by us.  The angel said Jesus was “going ahead of you…just as he told you”.  He told them? Yes.  Back in chapter 14 Jesus led the Passover dinner celebration.  On their way out to the Mount of Olives, Jesus warned them of his coming death and followed with, “But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee” (v. 28).  But Peter, mustering up all his well-intentioned bravado, argued that he would not turn tail and run.  Jesus corrected him by saying he would deny him three times before sunrise.  But in the tension of the strangest of all nights, they missed his point: things will be restored “after I have risen.  Meet me in Galilee.”

So back in Jerusalem, the dots should have begun connecting, but they weren’t.  The disciples were in shock and disbelief.  Nothing made sense.  His body gone; multiple reports of sightings, rehashing words of a man in white.  Even the ground had trembled with two strong earthquakes.  Return to Galilee?  Is that what he said?  What about the kingdom?  Does any of this make sense?  They should have just marched out of the upper room and hurried back to Galilee.  But they didn’t; they stayed put.  Unbelief works like that.  It paralyzes the one it infects.

So why Galilee?  Why not Jerusalem?  After all, Jerusalem was the capital.  That was where the Temple was, where God’s presence was.  That was the place God “chose…for his name” (2 Chron. 6:6).   Why not Jerusalem?  Jerusalem had been corrupted and become a symbol of government power, religious authority and worldly pride.  She had rejected her leader; she would not follow:  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often I have longed to gather your children together…but you were not willing” (Matt. 23.37).  No, he would not lead his followers back to the capital, to the people that had rejected him (Mark 27:22-23).  He would meet them in Galilee, away from the power centers of government, religion, education, the media and business, and near to people who knew they had needs that only God could fill, to people whose hearts were open.  But to get them going, he first showed himself in Jerusalem.