‘And he sent messengers before his face, and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for him, and they did not receive him, because his face was as though he were going to Jerusalem.'
Many Galileans on going to Jerusalem would go via Peraea in order to avoid Samaria precisely for this reason, because the Samaritans, who had had their own temple on Mount Gerizim before it was destroyed and hated the Temple in Jerusalem (so much so that they had turned down Herod's offer to rebuild their temple because he was also intending to build one in Jerusalem), often physically opposed any Galileans if they were on their way to Jerusalem, while if they were going the other way there was no such problem.
But Jesus had a purpose for going through Samaria, for He ‘sent forth' (apostellein) messengers ‘before His face' (pro prosopou) to prepare the way for His coming. If we compare how the seventy are also ‘sent forth' (apostellein) ‘before His face' (pro prosopou) to cities to which He is to come, presumably again to prepare the way for His coming, everything suggests that these messengers were intended also to prepare for the proclamation of the Kingly Rule of God.
Up to this point in Luke the verb ‘prepare' has been used exclusively with the significance of God preparing His people to receive His word through His servants (Luke 1:17; Luke 1:76; Luke 2:31; Luke 3:4). This gives support to the idea that we have the same use here. (Although it is used later in Luke in its more mundane meaning).
But on the arrival of His messengers at one of their villages, on being told that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem they refused to receive Him or His message. This is the first time we learn of Jesus sending messengers before Him. The sending of the seventy will be the second. Such indications must therefore be seen as significant and as pointing to the same purpose, they are messengers who have come to prepare the way of the Lord.