This is the first of a four-part Advent devotional written by Executive Director Joe Tucker. 

The Tucker family had a long drive on Thanksgiving — from one corner of Ohio to the other to visit family.  We listened to Tish Harrison-Warren’s Liturgy of the Ordinary on our drive back from Dayton to Akron, and I was reminded of some of the depths and paradoxes of our faith.

Waiting is one such paradox. We live between two Kingdoms — the Kingdom that is here and the Kingdom that is to come. Advent is a practice I have come to deeply value — principally because I am not good at waiting. I want quick responses to my e-mails. I stare as small dots blink on my iPhone waiting anxiously for the full response. Advent is a church-rhythm that leads us towards hope and expectation.

Over the past four years, the Tucker family has spent every other Advent season pregnant — expecting. It is perfect metaphor for God’s Kingdom, an expectant mother that knows the joy and fullness that is to come and waits for the full delivery of good news. I value the Advent practices of waiting, lighting candles, and thinking of what is to come.

What good news will God bring? What past promises still carry me today? What hope do we carry?

Hope has carried us this year at South Street Ministries. We hope in the Resurrection and in seeing lost ones again. We hope in Restoration for returning citizens (ex-felons), for recovering addicts, and for regimented do-gooders who do not know rest.  We Hope in the perfect Rest that is found in Christ — a Rest that stills our busy-ness with the simple, yet deep knowledge that He is God and we are not.

My propensity for quick results and responses stands in stark contrast to Advent. The Church has waited and waited for so long. And we continue to wait. We cry Maranatha (Come Lord Come) as we see the division, hate, and vitriol around us, yet still we wait.

The Hope of Advent does more than remind us to continue waiting. It bolsters and strengthens us to be God’s agents of change between two Kingdoms.  Thus we plant gardens and wait for fruit. We work with After School kids and address the same disciplinary issues again and again. We strive to maintain support for reentry and recovery and health and wholeness at the Front Porch Cafe to make sure there exists a place in-between for all peoples.

The Hope of Advent reminds us that we are an in-between people. The work we do, from repairing a bicycle, to hosting a community event, to working with teen girls has eternal ramifications and slowly ushers in ‘good news’.  The Hope of Advent is fully realized in Jesus — this unlikely representation of the fullness of God, come at the fullness of time. Advent helps me filter the merriment of Christmas-time for the depth of God’s inception here on earth and the calling we have presently — to wait, to rest, to work, and to hope for God’s Kingdom fully come, on Earth as it is in Heaven.

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