Matthew 28:16 Meaning But the Eleven Disciples Went Into Galilee

Eleven, and the failure stays in the count rather than being tidied out of the record. The risen Lord had fixed this meeting himself, before the desertion and before his death, and the appointment held through both.

Galilee lay four days' walk north of Jerusalem, so reaching him cost the deserters a long road on his word and nothing else in hand. He keeps the appointment with the men who abandoned him, and their place with him rests on his arranging rather than their steadiness.

The higher realms of consciousness are the mountain, and the inner faculties that meditate withdraw upward into them to meet the presence appointed there. The circuit of energy in the body is Galilee, the round the life-force travels, and along it the 11 climb from ordinary awareness to the summit where the divine within has agreed to appear. The number has dropped from 12 to 11 because one power has fallen away, and the ascent is made by what remains.

Gospel accounts that disagree about this meeting are not mistakes but sealed doors, set so only the inner reading opens them. In plain terms, the faculties of a still mind rise through the body's circuit to its highest point, and there the light already within is recognized.

Mountain: the higher realms of consciousness, the summit awareness climbs to Galilee: the circuit the life-force travels through the body 11 disciples: the meditating faculties of the mind, now short one fallen power Disciples: the powers in a person that turn inward and meditate