By Andrea Lingle

Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”

Luke 9:18

"Our elders say that ceremonies are the way we 'remember to remember.'"

(Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, p 5)

Advent has arrived once more. It is a return to the beginning. Not the beginning that was the inception of it all, but a willful reinsertion of the self into the beginning of a story. This retold story, while rebeginning, is also unfolding. The story, in being retold, is reborn. The teller, in retelling the story, is shaped anew. Surely, our hands tremble on the door latch as we enter our Advent spaces. It takes indifference or courage to break the Advent threshold. There is a risk here. What if, as the familiar words spin cathedrals around us, we find ourselves thrown over by the enormity of the challenge of Emmanuel. God with us? How do we meet the challenge of God incarnate. There is another risk. One I am more terrified of. What if, this year, the words are stale—the meter and rhyme unable to stir our weary souls. What if Emmanuel is eclipsed by the tinsel and bright? 

So it is with faith. Faith is not being certain of the story, it is risking telling the story knowing full well that it might all come to smash. Faith is daring to try. Again. 

The night was overcast. The rumble of the crowd had dissipated into a lack-luster breeze that wafted through the branches of the olive trees. Darkness was bringing a chill, which was a relief from the glare of the afternoon. Jesus sat under a tree, knees pulled up in front of him, head resting heavily on his elbows crossed over his knees. The disciples tugged the baskets of uncanny trout and toast into a line. They would be empty before the sun was full-up tomorrow. The people were hungry. 

In the ninth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus asks a question. I wonder if his voice held doubt.  Once the crowds had gone away, do you think he wondered what it was all for? What would one meal do? Who do the crowds say that I am? Was he overwhelmed by their need, by their insistence?

The night was overcast. The disciples sat, arranging the bread in the baskets. This bread that hadn’t been shaped or kneaded by any hands. Some of the loaves had swirls slashed into the crust, one had olives folded into the dough, another was dotted with seeds. A single bird sang into the night. The disciples were unsure what had happened. There hadn’t been enough then there was too much. 

In the ninth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus asks a question. Do you think there might have been mischief in Jesus’s voice? Who do the crowds say that I am? Do you think he was grinning?