Seven days before the first Easter Sunday, Jesus and his disciples entered the city of Jerusalem.

Jesus himself was riding a donkey.

It was a great occasion. People waved palm branches about. Many were crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes as king, in the name of the Lord.”

* * *

Jesus knew well enough that in less than a week a crowd of Jerusalem residents would cry out, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Also that, within 30-odd years, the city would be a pile of rubble.

So as the procession came close to the city, we read:

“Seeing the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If thou had but known, in this thy day, the things that are for thy peace . . . . Thy enemies shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation.’ ” (Saint Luke’s gospel, chapter 19)

Our Lord went to his Passion and died for the salvation of Jerusalem (and others), but the city itself would not be saved.

In fact the Romans did flatten it, well and truly, and destroyed the Temple, in the year 70AD.

* * *

The palms which will be blessed in your church today represent the victory which Jesus is about to win over death.

Dear Lord, while the people were singing hymns of praise, you were filled with pity and wept.

How you must weep today over our modern world and its desire not to know about you or to obey you.

No doubt our so-called civilisation, too, will be destroyed.

Give us the grace to repent of our sin and ill-will, to start obeying you, and to accept, even at this late stage, the gift of forgiveness and salvation that you offer.

Even if we resist your grace, we must concede, Lord, that yours is the ultimate victory.