Holy Monday: A Moment of Care

John 12:1-11 NRSVUE

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The start of Holy Week can feel surprisingly busy. Even as we name it as sacred time, the to-do list grows. 

I remember the urgency of finding a dress with ruffled socks. Filling up Easter baskets and brown paper special bags with fruit and nuts for my church cousins. Practicing my Easter speech over and over until it was perfect. Crying through hair appointments. While Mama planned out the elaborate Easter Family Gathering menu.

Resurrection Sunday is coming, and it's bringing the pressure for everything to be beautiful, organized, and meaningful.

It’s easy to move through this week in preparation mode, focused on what’s ahead, what needs to be done, and how it will all come together. But if we look closely, Holy Monday actually arrives quietly, offering a moment that resists urgency and refuses productivity.

In John 12, Jesus is not preaching, healing, or performing a miracle. He is not teaching a parable or confronting the authorities. He is sitting at the table in the home of his friends. This moment slows the pace of Holy Week before it accelerates toward the cross, inviting us to notice what happens when the focus is not on preparation, but on being present.

Mary enters the room carrying an alabaster jar of perfume that is expensive enough for others to immediately notice its value. Without hesitation, she pours the oil on Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair. The act is intimate and embodied, tender in a way that makes the room uncomfortable. The fragrance fills the house, ensuring that this moment of care cannot remain private or contained.

What is striking here is not only Mary’s devotion, but Jesus’ willingness to receive it. He does not interrupt her or question her decision. He does not redirect her attention toward something more efficient or socially acceptable. He allows her care to reach him fully. Jesus, who so often gives himself away for others, receives tenderness without resistance.

For many of us, this is one of the most challenging images of Jesus in the Gospels. We are more familiar with a Jesus who pours out, sacrifices, and endures, especially during Holy Week. But a Jesus who receives care disrupts the way we have been formed. 

Many of us were taught, directly or indirectly, that holiness is demonstrated through constant giving, that rest must be earned, and that strength is proven through endurance. Receiving, on the other hand, can feel indulgent, unnecessary, or even unsafe.

So we learn to stay busy. 

We learn to keep moving. 

We learn how to be needed, reliable, and strong. 

We become fluent in giving while remaining uncomfortable with being held. 

For some of us, especially those who have learned that survival requires self-sufficiency, receiving care can feel like a risk we cannot afford to take.

And yet, on Holy Monday, before betrayal, before arrest, before the violence of Empire fully reveals itself, Jesus allows himself to be cared for. Not later. Not after the suffering is complete. He receives now, in the midst of what is coming.

This moment invites us to reconsider what faithfulness looks like. Receiving care is not a distraction from devotion; it is part of it. Mary is not trying to fix Jesus or prevent what is coming. She is present, attentive, and unafraid to offer care that costs her something and disrupts the expectations of the room. Jesus does not diminish her offering or make himself smaller to ease the discomfort of others.

As we sit with this passage, we are invited to pay attention to our own bodies. 

• What would it mean to receive care now, rather than later?

• What stories surface about strength, worthiness, and responsibility? 

• Where have we learned that care must be postponed until after everything is handled, everyone else is served, and all the preparations are complete?

Holy Monday does not rush us toward Resurrection Sunday. It invites us to linger at the table and to notice where we have made ourselves unavailable to care. It asks us to consider how often we deflect tenderness, apologize for our needs, or believe we must carry everything on our own. In allowing Mary’s care, Jesus models a faith that remains deeply human. 

If Jesus could receive care on the edge of grief and loss, perhaps we can too. Perhaps part of our Holy Week preparation is not only about getting ready for Sunday morning, but about learning how to receive love without resistance. 

Mary’s care fills the house with fragrance, leaving a trace that lingers beyond the moment itself. In the same way, Holy Monday invites us to let care linger in our own bodies and trust that receiving does not diminish us. It restores us.

May we loosen our grip on strength as a requirement for worthiness. 

May we allow care to land where it has long been withheld. 

And may we remember, as this sacred week begins, that care is not a detour from devotion. It is devotion embodied.