NOTES for Mat 4:12-17
Why did Christ need to withdraw to Galilee? According to ordinary human logic, He should have gone to preach in places where there were more educated people, people knowledgeable in Scripture and therefore better prepared, places where it would be easier to be heard. And in days when a widely known preacher is being imprisoned, it would be better to quiet down altogether, but at the same time secure the support of influential people, wait, and at a convenient moment begin preaching with their backing.
But Christ follows His own logic, one that is incomprehensible by ordinary human standards. Even to a sympathetic observer, His preaching could have looked like taking up the baton that had fallen from John's hands. After all, Jesus repeats John's words: repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near. But soon, already in Galilee, the difference between the two teachings will begin to emerge, and one will give way to the other. Christ will increase, and John will decrease. Yet Christ's greatness is inseparably bound up with His self-emptying, and one of the expressions of that self-emptying was His withdrawal to Galilee, a remote province on the border of pagan lands. It is here that an event, at first noticed by few, takes place, an event that changed the world: the preaching of the Savior.