Monday Holy Week Devotional
Isaiah 42:1–9, Hebrews 9:11–15, John 12:1–11
Summary of the Texts
Isaiah 42 opens with God presenting the servant: here is my chosen one, in whom I delight. God has put his Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations — not through force or noise, but with gentleness. He won’t break a bruised reed or snuff out a smoldering wick. He will establish justice faithfully. God then speaks in the first person: I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I will hold your hand and keep you. I am doing a new thing. The former things have come to pass, and now something new is being declared before it springs into being.
Hebrews 9 contrasts the old covenant sacrificial system with what Christ accomplishes. The tabernacle and its rituals were external — repeated animal sacrifices that could purify the flesh but couldn’t reach the conscience. Christ enters not a humanmade sanctuary but the true one, offering not the blood of animals but his own blood, securing an eternal redemption. He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those called might receive the promised eternal inheritance. The old covenant required death to deal with sin. The new covenant provides it once, completely, in Christ.
John 12 takes place in Bethany six days before Passover. Jesus is at dinner with Lazarus, whom he recently raised from the dead. Martha serves. Mary takes a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume, pours it on Jesus’s feet, and wipes them with her hair. The whole house fills with the fragrance. Judas objects, framing it as waste — the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. John notes bluntly that Judas didn’t say this because he cared about the poor. Jesus defends Mary: leave her alone. She has done this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In the background of the scene, the chief priests are plotting to kill not only Jesus but also Lazarus, whose resurrection has been drawing crowds toward Jesus.
Overview of the Conversation
This session was structured differently from the rest of the Lenten series. Rather than drilling deeply into a single text, the conversation moved across all three passages thematically, treating them as a unit that sets the stage for what is about to happen. The format matched the moment — Holy Week doesn’t call for the same kind of analytical distance. It calls for the kind of attention you give the third act of a story you’ve been living inside for weeks.
The Crescendo
The dominant feeling in the conversation was anticipation. These texts feel like a final setup. The prophecy from Isaiah, the theological argument in Hebrews about why the old system was insufficient, the intimate dinner scene in John — all of them are pointing forward. The lectionary, which has been threading consistent themes across the entire season, now draws those threads together and pulls. You can feel where this is going. Even knowing the outcome doesn’t entirely dissolve the tension, because Holy Week asks us to experience the story rather than just recall it.
The Insufficiency of the Law
The Hebrews passage generated the most sustained theological reflection. The old covenant sacrifices were real, and they were not nothing. But they were external. They addressed ritual impurity without reaching the deeper problem. The animal had to keep dying. The box had to keep getting checked. And still, it wasn’t enough. Hebrews is making a pointed argument: the law was not the final word. It was a signpost pointing toward something the law itself could never accomplish.
That led to a broader observation about how Christians read the Old Testament. You cannot read it faithfully while ignoring Jesus. The law, the sacrifices, the covenants — all of it runs toward Christ as its fulfillment. When the Old Testament gets used as a proof text while bypassing what Jesus does with it, the whole interpretive framework breaks down. Christianity is, at its core, reading the entire biblical story through the lens of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
The Arc of the Covenants
The conversation traced the pattern of covenant-making throughout Scripture. Adam, Noah, Moses — each covenant represents God reaching toward humanity and humanity failing to hold up its end. The pattern repeats. God gives more grace, more opportunity, more structure. And still the problem persists, because the problem is deeper than any external system can fix. Finally, the argument goes, God simply does it himself. The new covenant is not another attempt to give humanity better instructions. It’s God stepping in where humanity couldn’t and doing the saving work directly.
The Smell of Nard
The John passage brought the conversation into something more sensory and immediate. When Mary pours an entire pint of pure nard on Jesus’s feet, the text says the fragrance fills the whole house. The group sat with that image. In a world saturated with the smells of sacrifice, of animals and blood and burning, here is something different — an extravagant, disruptive, almost overwhelming act of devotion that nobody saw coming and nobody could ignore. The smell doesn’t ask permission. It just fills the room.
That image became a way of talking about Holy Week itself. The whole point of gathering on Thursday and Friday is disruption. Most weeks, fifty-one times a year, the invitation to worship is predictable. Holy Week is the one time the church asks people to do something genuinely inconvenient, to show up multiple times, to sit in services that don’t follow the normal pattern. Good Friday in particular ends in darkness without resolution. There’s no tidy close. You leave carrying something unfinished, because that’s where they were. That disruption isn’t incidental to Holy Week. It’s the point.
Judas in the Corner
The conversation couldn’t move past the John passage without noting Judas. He speaks up with what sounds like a reasonable concern — this perfume was worth a year’s wages, it could have fed people. And John, characteristically, gives us the editorial note: he didn’t say this because he cared about the poor. The reason goes unstated, which leaves the reader to speculate. Is he compensating for what he’s already decided to do? Is he performing concern he doesn’t feel? John doesn’t say. He just makes sure we know the words and the posture didn’t match.
Questions for Reflection
Hebrews describes the new covenant as God doing what humanity never could. Where in your life are you still trying to earn or manage what God has already provided?
Mary’s act of devotion was extravagant, disruptive, and possibly embarrassing. What would it look like for your faith to be that publicly and uncomplicatedly generous?
Are you planning to be present for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services this week? If not, what is it costing you to skip the middle of the story?
