158 Hanna Stettler which follows immediately, it demonstrates that where people put their trust in Jesus this holy people could transcend the limits of Israel (Mark 7,29). The impurity of that gentile woman is not an issue for Jesus. The same attitude is at the heart of Jesus’ intention to enter a village of the Samaritans (Luke 9,52-56). Again, Samaria was not simply gentile territory; it was “part of the idealized dimensions of the biblical Holy Land as assigned to the nine-and-a-half lost tribes” (14). Yet pious Jews normally shunned it for purity reasons. Jesus, however, regardless of purity matters, symbolically went to restore it as a part of Israel. Jesus’ announcement that he would go to Galilee after his resurrection (Mark 14,27-28 par. Matt 26,31; see Mark 16,7 par. Matt 28,7; cf. Luke 24,6) also symbolizes the completion of the messianic gathering of Israel. In order to fully comprehend the significance of this announcement, one has to take into consideration the quotation from Zech 13,7-8 in Mark 14,27. Zech 13,7 speaks of the death of the messianic shepherd of Israel and of the extirpation of two thirds of the people. After that a remnant of the people will be saved and re- established as people of God (Zech 13,8-9). In this context, Galilee stands for the no longer existing Northern kingdom of Israel, which, according to the prophets (Ezek 37,15-28; cf. Jer 30,1-31,40; Hos 11,8-9) had to be re-united with the South in order for Israel to be restored. By quoting Zech 13,7 before he went to Galilee, Jesus indicated that he was about to fulfil the expectation of the restitution of Israel after judgement on the shepherd and his flock (15). After the resurrection of Jesus, however, the limitation to Israel no longer applies. Now the disciples are sent to “all nations”. However, “for the sake of their new, world-wide mission the disciples are not to stop going through the cities of Israel, which Jesus had made their duty in Matt 10,5-6. It is not an oversight that Matthew does not report a return of the disciples during Jesus’ lifetime ...” (16). By their mission to the Gentiles they are setting “into play the pilgrimage of the nations to (14) Ibid. (15) H. Gese pointed this out in a senior seminar in Tübingen in 1997. See the short remark in his article “The Messiah”, 151 and the more extensive presentation in P. STUHLMACHER, “Matt 28:16-20 and the Course of Mission in the Apostolic and Postapostolic Age”, The Mission of the Early Church to Jews and Gentiles (ed. J. ÅDNA) (WUNT 127; Tübingen 2000) 24-27; similarly D. WENHAM, Paul. Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids, MI – Cambridge, U.K. 1995) 177f. (16) STUHLMACHER, “The Course of Mission”, 30.