Mark 16:7

But go, and say to his disciples and to Peter ‘He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.’”


to you is entrusted
an everyday still available
for you and more than you

the dead have been buried
you are to unearth the living
to trust rising together

you have said thanks
now comes living yes
welcome to G*D’s presence


Women are always getting the short-stick of diakonia—they “serve” while men “minister”. Here they are told to ὑπάγετε(hupagete, “off with you!”, “depart”).

In Mark’s gospel, we do not hear of Judas dying. Readers might wonder why Peter, especially, needs to be told. Is his betrayal greater than that of Judas? Judas’ betrayal proactively moved Jesus to the suffering and death components of his envisioned journey. Peter’s betrayal was reactive in his self-protective denial.

The “especially” translation may be too dramatic. To honor Mark’s tendency toward ambivalence, it is better to translate it more toward a more general, “including Peter”.

When Jesus is “going ahead of you” or “going before” you, we are not in another glorious or mocking parade (depending on how you see the earlier entrance into Jerusalem). This is a temporal, not spacial precedence. Jesus is already present in everyday settings.

For those who distinguish different types of grace, this places a risen Jesus in the position of prevenience (already present, much like practice that leads to Preemptive or Premeditated Mercy).

It is in Galilee, everyday life, where fishing is fishing, a business, not an allusive luring of a witness or apostle, that Jesus will be “seen”. Those who have been watching for some apocalyptic scene will need to recalculate their position to arrive at the learning of wisdom in everyday terms—not the glory of a rebuilt Jerusalem and Temple repeating its fall to authorizing death and away from a house of prayer for “all”.

Aichle55 helps us wonder:

Insofar as the young man here speaks for Jesus, is he telling the women (who may hear for the reader) that the resurrection has not yet occurred? Is he implying that the resurrection is even now, at the present moment of the reader’s reading, a future event?

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