I’m writing an Advent devotional focused on embodiment. This is what I wrote yesterday for one of the devotionals. I selected the passages some time ago, but they really resonated with the events of January 24, 2026.
Psalm 40:6–8
Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, “Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”
Hebrews 10:5–7
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do your will, O God’ (in the scroll of the book it is written of me).”
Reflection
I write today carrying the weight of witnessing state violence—most recently the public execution of Alex Pretti by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. I saw the state kill a perceived dissident, a child of God. This within weeks of the state-sanctioned murders of Keith Porter and Renée Good. So I write today with a new heaviness in my heart.
Today’s passages remind us that God doesn’t require sacrifice, but that we do God’s will. Jesus comes into the world and shows us what doing God’s will looks like. Jesus commands we love in radical ways: care for the poor and vulnerable, love the undesirable, and put our lives on the lines for others. This love is never abstract. It is practiced with hands that feed, voices that speak, backs that bear weight, and feet that refuse to turn away. Jesus’ resistance to Rome’s exploitation of its colonized residents led to his death. The Roman state killed Jesus, a threat to the status quo.
The state requires sacrifice; God does not.
The state decides which bodies are disposable.
God loves the bodies the world discards.
I may never know how to process the images I saw today, but I truly believe that salvation begins with a body that can be wounded. Advent reminds us that God does not save us from afar. Jesus shows us that God does not finish God’s good work at death. May Keith, Renée, and Alex’s deaths not be in vain, but may they spur us into greater love for our neighbor. And may their memory be a blessing.
Practice
Read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and name invitations that feel costly or uncomfortable. Sit in that.
Prayer
God who sits with us in our suffering, move in our hearts inspiring greater love from our pain. Amen.
Jillian D. Nelson, PhD 