We began our liturgy this morning, as we always do on Palm Sunday, by recalling the Lord’s entry into the holy city of Jerusalem. It was a triumphant journey filled with enthusiasm, joy and acclamation. But for those who know how the story unfolds - for us, therefore - it is a story full of menace, for we know that those who welcomed Jesus with such enthusiasm today will either have joined the crowd baying for His blood in just a few days’ time or will have been drowned out by the angry violence of those who were determined to destroy Him.

We will, of course, when we gather on Good Friday afternoon, hear again the story of the Lord‘s passion and death and we will also, when we gather on Holy Thursday for the commemoration of the Lord’s Last Supper, re-enact the Lord’s washing of His disciples’ feet and remember His gift of himself to us in the Eucharist.

Perhaps this morning, then, we might just pause for a moment to reflect on the way in which the contrast between the joy with which today’s celebration began and the sorrow which fills our hearts as we hear again the story of his death, shines a light on the nature of our own response to the Lord.

We are here this morning because we are people of faith. We are here because we want to be disciples of Jesus. But we are also here, surely, because we recognise that what we want in the depths of our hearts - what we want when we are in touch with the best of who we are - does not always correspond to the reality of our own lives. I suspect it is not that hard for any of us to recognise that had we been alive and in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus we might have been among the crowds which welcomed him enthusiastically into the city but also just a few days later among the crowds who turned against Him.

Saint Paul himself recognised this reality in his own life. In his letter to the early Church in Rome, he says this: I cannot understand my own behaviour. I fail to carry out the things I want to do, and I find myself doing the very things I hate … for although the will to do what is good is in me, the carrying out of those good intentions is not, with the result that instead of doing the good things I want to do I carry out the sinful things I do not want.

I suspect that many of those who reflected on their involvement in the terrible events of the last week of Jesus’ life, from their enthusiasm on Palm Sunday to their vicious behaviour on Good Friday, must have thought the same thing about themselves: why do I keep doing things that I know are not worthy of me? Why cannot I act according to my best and highest ideals instead of acting according to my worst instincts? Why do I sometimes act so badly?

When Saint Paul asked this question of himself he exclaimed, almost in despair, “what a wretched person I am!” Sometimes we might feel the same. But especially at this time of the year, when we recall, as Saint Paul also did, that Jesus died for us and that His love has no limits, and as we recall that we celebrate Palm Sunday this year as part of the Jubilee year of Hope, our faith assures us that there is no need to despair - that there is always reason to hope - because although we may fail the Lord, fail him badly and fail Him often, He will never fail us. The love that led Jesus to the cross is the same love which led Jesus to say to His disciples and to say to us when we find ourselves in the midst of life’s storms, and especially those storms created in our minds and hearts by our own infidelities and failures, do not be afraid, have courage, I am with you.

May we, as Holy Week begins, open our eyes and our hearts to the Lord who is always with us, even when we think we have distanced ourselves from Him.