The Nativity of John the Baptist celebrates the birth of the forerunner of Christ, the son promised to the aged priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, who would go before the Lord to prepare his way. It is one of only three birthdays the church keeps, alongside those of Christ and the Virgin Mary, and it falls on June 24, six months before Christmas, because the angel told Mary that Elizabeth was already in her sixth month. The man whose birth it marks would spend his life pointing away from himself to Christ.