“Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,”
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God — the arrest of John is the occasion for Jesus' public ministry to begin. The torch passes from the forerunner to the one foretold. Mark does not describe John's imprisonment yet (that comes in chapter 6), but the note serves a structural purpose: John's ministry ends as Jesus' begins, and the ending is violent, foreshadowing Jesus' own ending. The good news of God is the message Jesus proclaims: this is God's good news, not a human announcement. The Galilean setting fulfills Isaiah 9:1 (Galilee of the Gentiles), the northern region dismissed by Jerusalem's religious elite, as the place where the kingdom is announced.
Church Fathers on Mark 1:14
And to shew us that in persecutions we ought to retire, and not to await them; but when we fall into them, we must sustain them.
John being put in prison, fitly does the Lord begin to preach: wherefore there follows, 'Preaching the Gospel, &c.' For when the Law ceases, the Gospel arises in its steps.
When the shadow ceases, the truth comes on; first, John in prison, the Law in Judaea; then, Jesus in Galilee, Paul among the Gentiles preaching the Gospel of the kingdom. For to an earthly kingdom succeeds poverty, to the poverty of Christians is given an everlasting kingdom; but earthly honour is like the foam of water, or smoke, or sleep.
Read all 8 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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