Just prior to his ascension, Jesus appeared to his disciples and said to them, "Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." Why this command, when a short time before he had told them to return to Galilee? The disciples had, just previous to the crucifixion, accompanied their Master to Jerusalem, but they were not spiritually prepared or strong enough to follow him and endure with him the Gethsemane, the trial, the cross and crucifixion. They were not yet prepared to probe to its depths the iniquity of evil and prove its nothingness. They gave way before the pressure of human hatred and ecclesiastical despotism.
The Master, foreseeing their weakness and failure in the crisis of his earthly mission, sent them back to friendly Galilee, there to repent of their weakness and to gain new courage and inspiration from their Master's supreme victory over malice, envy, death, and the grave. When the two Marys went to the sepulcher, the angel said to them, "Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him." Sometimes we flee before the assaults of error and try to evade our clearly defined duty; later, we awake to see our folly, and then we have to go back to Galilee, our starting point, and prepare to begin our work over again. There in Galilee we find the Christ, Truth, before us, holding us up, encouraging us, strengthening us, inspiring us to renew our life-work, more alert to the nature of evil and better prepared to resist its subtleties and falsities.
In confirmation of the message of the angel, Jesus appeared to the disciples after the resurrection on the shore of the Galilean sea in that wonderfully inspiring meeting to which Mrs. Eddy refers on page 34 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Although Jesus sent his disciples back to Galilee and later met them there, we have no evidence that he intended that they should remain there permanently. Galilee was a friendly shelter; but the men whom the Master had chosen to preach the gospel to all the world and heal the sick could not spend their time indefinitely in an obscure province, however friendly it might be.
