The faith of women is recognised in traditional Christian teaching and given considerable honour by the Scriptures.  This is not of course saying that women always have more faith than men, but it has been handed down to us that even when most of Jesus’ closest male disciples had forsaken Him, there were His female disciples witnessing at a distance the horror of His crucifixion.

And it is appropriate that the women who were not afraid to identify with Him even in His death, as evidenced by their preparation to embalm Him, became those who provided the first witness that there was no body to embalm and He had risen from death.

Luke 1: 39-56 also conveys to us a remarkable account of the faith of two women, the Blessed Mother and her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.

Mary’s faith is best known in her submission to the divine vocation laid upon her, in her words “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to Your word.” (Luke 1: 38)  The account follows this up with Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, when at her greeting on entering Zachariah and Elizabeth’s house, Elizabeth’s baby, the future John the Baptist, leapt in his mother’s womb.

Nowhere in the biblical account is it implied that the baby kicked in the womb, although I know just about all mothers today talk about their babies kicking.  In the Spirit and in faith, St Elizabeth knew that her child leapt for joy.

Then she exclaimed these great words of faith and deference: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me.... and blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

What objective difference can there really be between a kicking action and a leaping action when it involves an unborn baby? Perhaps the difference is in the way the mother interprets it more than anything else.

A mother that considers her baby to be fighting her, will probably imagine the movement to be a kicking.  But the mother who thinks of the movements as signs of the baby’s joy or gladness as he experiences his earliest sensations might, it seems to me, think more readily of the baby leaping.

Leaping is more appropriate to the language of faith. And we know well now how much the attitude of the mother and even the father towards the unborn baby can affect the child.

The attitude of faith is fundamentally wholesome and life-giving, while an attitude of complaint and antagonism is fundamentally life-destroying to oneself and to others and especially to one’s dependants.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”, said Jesus Himself to His apostle St. Thomas many years later, when Thomas, like Zacharias, Elizabeth’s husband, had only believed on the evidence of the event that had been promised. For if the promise is divinely given, we do better to believe it in spite of counter-evidence.

It can also be underlined that part of the language of faith on the part of these two women was deference or submission.  For the Blessed Mother: “Be it unto me according to thy word.”  For St Elizabeth: “Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Faith must defer or submit to what directs it or inspires it.  For faith is the opposite of self-direction, self-accusation or self-confidence.  In Micah 5: 2, only by faith could the prophet have expected insignificant Bethlehem to bring forth the sought-for ruler in Israel.

In Hebrews 10: 5-7 Christ Himself is depicted in deference to the Father’s will.  The truth is that there is no faith without submission to a higher authority, and with the common confusion between faith and self-confidence, that is not something that we regularly hear in today’s world.

It is the task of Christians to place submission and deference such as Mary’s and Elizabeth’s back on the world’s menu, if the world is to survive.  It is the task of Christians once again to teach our contemporaries a true anthropology, a true theory of man, based upon submission or deference to his creator and His word of teaching.  We must swim upstream on the way of Christ when the downstream current is strong.  In truth, this is exciting.  Knowing that the seemingly impossible is the will of God makes our time exhilarating.

Don’t get carried off downstream, because that is the way of death.  Enjoy the upstream struggle, because this is the way directed, the way of submission, the way of Christ, the way of life.

For commentary, information and devotional material see www.churchofenglandcayman.com and www.anglicansatprayer.org