Nativity of John the Baptist
Christian feast day celebrating the birth of John the Baptist
The Nativity of John the Baptist (or Birth of John the Baptist, or Nativity of the Forerunner, or colloquially Johnmas or St. John's Day (in German Johanni or Johannistag) is a Christian feast day. It is observed annually on 24 June. The Nativity of John the Baptist is a high-ranking liturgical feast, kept in the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglicanism, and Lutheranism. The sole biblical account of the birth of John the Baptist comes from the Gospel of Luke.
Significance
Christians have long interpreted the life of John the Baptist as a preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ, and the circumstances of his birth, as recorded in the New Testament, are miraculous. John's pivotal place in the gospel is seen in the emphasis Luke gives to the announcement of his birth and the event itself, both set in parallel to the same occurrences in the life of Jesus.
The sole biblical account of the birth of John the Baptist comes from the Gospel of Luke. John's parents, Zechariah or Zachary—a Jewish priest—and Elizabeth, were without children and both were beyond the age of child-bearing. During Zechariah's rotation to serve in the Temple in Jerusalem, he was chosen by lot to offer incense at the Golden Altar in the Holy of Holies.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nativity of John the Baptist” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.