Intro to Chapter 1: John the Baptist
John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, is an important enough figure that the angel Gabriel speaks of him to Mary. The apostle John breaks into his paean to the Word which was with God to speak of the “man sent from God, whose name was John.”
Luke tells of the first meeting between Jesus and John, which occurred when both were in the womb. Mary spoke, and the unborn John leaped. “Leaped” in the Greek is the same word used in the Septuagint for “danced,” when King David danced before the Lord with all his might. David was dancing before the Ark of the Covenant, the vessel that held the commandments, the word of God. John danced before Mary, the Ark that held the Incarnate Word, the Word that was with God, the Word that was God.
Whether Mary stayed with her cousin Elizabeth so that the unborn Jesus was present at John’s birth, we are not told. We are told that the two met again by the Jordan River, when both had grown to manhood. Palestine was still under Roman occupation, ruled through procurators and puppet kings like Herod Antipas. Rebels and trouble-makers were dealt with harshly.