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When Jesus heard that John had been arrested,
he withdrew to Galilee.
Jesus withdrew to Galilee, but not as a retreat. Although he did not go directly to confront Herod for imprisoning his cousin John and instead placed himself further from the sphere of Herod's influence, nevertheless his plan was not to go into hiding. It was rather to find the perfect place to reveal the life that was the light of men (see John 1:4) to the world without hindrance.
Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles,
He went to Capernaum by the sea, at the intersection of Zebulun and Naphtali, places that were among the first to experience conquest and exile by the Assyrians. Even into the time of Jesus these lands were thoroughly intermixed with "the Gentiles". Yet Matthew interpreted this move of Jesus to Capernaum in a remarkable way. Jesus was in some sense exiled from the lands of the south that were still more entirely Jewish in order to avoid the influence of Herod. But this exile brought him precisely to the peripheries, together with a people descended from the first in Israel to experience exile. And it was the case that negative consequences still persisted from that time, that the people there still dwelt in a darkness that rendered them unable able to be fully what they were intended to be. How fitting that it was precisely there that Jesus would inaugurate his work of reuniting the lost tribes of Israel in "the kingdom of heaven". How appropriate that the first places to experience those dark consequences of covenant infidelity and sin were the first to see the great light of hope that Jesus offered.
the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death
light has arisen.
Even the intermixing of the Gentiles was something allowed by God in his providence, so that, finally, he could not restore the tribes without also blessing the nations. Although Jesus was still focused on the lost sheep of the house of Israel it was nevertheless a hint that even the Gentiles would benefit from this light. Indeed, such had been the promise of Isaiah.
It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth (see Isaiah 49:6).
Maybe Matthew wasn't the only one to interpret the arrival of Jesus on the seen in Galilee in this way. It would help to explain the eagerness of those whom Jesus first called to follow him. Normal rabbis did not call their disciples, but rather were sought out by those who wished to follow them. But perhaps Peter, Andrew, James, and John, sensed, even unconsciously, that what they heard in the call of Jesus was in that very call his beginning the work of regathering the tribes around him.
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
At once they left their nets and followed him.
We too have many places in a world that we might describe as "in darkness", as a "land of gloom", and indeed as "a land overshadowed by death". Jesus demonstrated that where the darkness seemed to be the greatest, the most impenetrable, was precisely the place where he chose to reveal his light. For us too in our own day this mean that places steeped in darkness are actually among the leading candidates to receive the unsurpassable light and hope of God.
You have brought them abundant joy
and great rejoicing,
as they rejoice before you as at the harvest,
as people make merry when dividing spoils.
What is the gateway to the joy of the light of Christ? We must "repent" and embrace "metanoia", that is, a new and spiritual way of thinking and acting that is given to us by God, leaving behind our own habits and patterns of thinking that keep us entrenched in darkness. Repentance is emphatically not a path to a joyless life, but rather is the only way to embrace a life of true joy.
The Lord is my light and my salvation.
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