"And as they drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, 'If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that belong to your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.'" (Luke 19:41,42 ).

"'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.... For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?" ( Luke 23:28,31).

Jesus wept over Jerusalem. The women wept over Him, and He told them to weep for themselves and for their children. Grief at a moment of triumph, grief at a moment of desolation.

There is irony in the Palm Sunday story, for over its rejoicing hangs the shadow of the betrayal, trial and crucifixion. Was the angry crowd that called for His crucifixion the same multitude that hailed Him as King five days earlier? Why did the Lord ride in triumph, knowing the things that would surely come to pass? He did so to announce that He, the Divine truth from the Divine good, would rule all things; to give us a picture which will stand for all time of His majesty. And then the events of Gethsemane and Calvary let us know the nature of that majesty - that indeed His kingdom is not of this world.

Can we picture the scene on Palm Sunday? The multitudes were rejoicing and shouting, and then they saw their King weeping. This was not a brief moment, but a sustained weeping, which caused the writer of the gospel to hear of it. Did their shouting die down as they watched His grief, did they wonder when He pronounced doom upon the city they lived in? "Your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children with you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation." Then, perhaps, as He rode on, the cheering resumed, and the strange words were forgotten.

There is yet another irony; for the people shouted that peace had come. "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" Yet when Jesus wept, He said to the city, "If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes."

This grand panorama speaks of the world inside each human being. It is in our minds, in the spiritual sense of the Word, that Jesus rides in triumph. When we see the wonder of His truth, sense its power over all things, we crown Him. All the events of Palm Sunday tell of those times when we acknowledge that the Lord, the visible God, rules our minds through the Word which is within us. It is a time of great rejoicing. Like the multitudes of Palm Sunday, we feel that this vision will sweep all that is evil away, and the Lord will easily reign within us as our King and our God.

Such happy times do come to us, and we can rejoice in them, and hail our Lord and King with jubilation. "Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!" Peace comes through conjunction with the Lord whom we have seen (Apocalypse Explained 369:9, 11). Yet the Lord Himself knows that there are battles to come from those who know no peace. This too He warns us of in His Word. In the natural Jerusalem of the Lord's day the rulers had used falsity to destroy the truth, and they brought much grief upon the Christians. In the spiritual Jerusalem in our minds there are false values which would destroy peace. Before we get to heaven there is going to be a battle between our vision of the Lord and our self love which will abuse the truth to make that happen.

So the Lord wept, out there on the mount of Olives, as He looked down upon the city. His weeping was a sign of mercy, for He grieves over the states in us which will hurt us and which are opposed to our peace. (Arcana Coelestia 5480; Apocalypse Explained 365 [9]; cf. 365:11, 340). Yet His grief is an active force, it is mercy, working to eliminate those states. Jesus promised that Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed - not a single stone left standing. It is true that the natural Jerusalem was razed to the ground, but this is not what He meant. He promises us - even as He warns us of the battles to come - that He will triumph, and that our Jerusalem - our excuses for doing evil - will not stand. They will be decimated by His Word. (Cf. Arcana Coelestia 6588 [5]; Apocalypse Explained 365 [9]).

He wept from mercy, and He promised an end to weeping, for "His tender mercies are over all His works."

On Good Friday there was surely cause for weeping. Picture this scene: The women were following the cross, lamenting. Jesus must have been bleeding from the whipping, and scarred by the crown of thorns. He was surrounded by people who enjoyed seeing someone die. Those who called Him their enemy were satisfied that they had won.

His followers were desolate. Never had they imagined that the dream He had fostered would end this way, or the Leader they loved would be treated so terribly. They felt for Him in what they were sure was His suffering. They wept for Him.

Then perhaps the crowds that insulted Him were stilled as He turned to the mourners. Out of His infinite love He spoke. "'Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.'" He did not think of His approaching agony, He grieved for those He loved. He would triumph. It was upon them that suffering would come. What clearer picture can we have of the goal which brought our God to earth than that sentence? He came because evil people and evil feelings bring misery to His children. He came to give them joy after their weeping, to give them consolation and hope, and finally to give them the certainty that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying.

The women of that time did indeed face physical sorrow. It is heartbreaking to learn of the persecutions of the Christians, to think of people killed because they worship their God; of children being taken from them, of good people subject to the mercy of those who know no mercy. Indeed it must have seemed that the Lord was right in saying that it would have been better had they never borne children who would suffer so for their faith. "For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!'"

But the real reason the Lord came down to earth was that within physical cruelty there is a far greater hurt. There are plenty of people walking this earth who wouldn't think of murdering someone else, but who regularly enjoy taking away something far more precious - his ability to follow his Lord.

That was why the Lord spoke those words, "Weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." The daughters of Jerusalem represent the gentle love of truth with sincere people all over the world. Their children are the charity and faith which comes from the love of truth. These are the casualties of evil, especially when it infests a church. These are the things that cause internal weeping, a sorrow of the spirit that is the more devastating because it is silent.

"Daughters of Jerusalem," He called them. Our innocent love of the truth grows up together with our justification for being selfish. In fact, it is ruled by self justification, as the daughters of Jerusalem were ruled by a corrupt church. When those women tried to break loose from the Jewish Church they were persecuted. When our innocent love of the truth seeks to lead us to follow the Lord we suffer temptations in our spirits. The hells rise up and tempt us with all the selfish and evil delights we have ever had, and we indeed weep for ourselves.

You see, it is not the truth itself that suffers! "Weep not for Me," Jesus said. The truth is all powerful. It is our love for that truth which is tempted. It is our charity and our faith - the children of that love - which suffer.

"For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts which never nursed.'" Doesn't it seem to us at times that the people who have no truths, who have no ideals, are the ones that are happy? In fact this is a prophecy that those who are outside of the Church and find it afresh will have an easier time than those who bring the falsities of life into the battle.

On Palm Sunday, when Jesus wept, He said that Jerusalem would be destroyed. As I have said, He was actually promising the destruction of evil in us. On Good Friday He gave the same assurance: "Then they will begin 'to say to the mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!"' These apparently harsh words are ones of comfort, for they promise that as the Lord's truth triumphs in us, heaven will draw nearer. When that happens the hells who tempt us will be unable to bear the presence of heaven, and will cover themselves over and hide.

"For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?" The listeners knew what that meant: if when He was among them they rejected His truth, what will they do when the memory of His presence and His miracles have dried up? In the internal sense the green wood is truth that is still alive from a love for it. Even when we see the ideals of the Word, we are going to struggle with temptation. But when that wood dries out, when we can't sense the life and power of truth, the battle becomes very much harder.

In both these images - His weeping on Palm Sunday, His sad warning to the women to weep for themselves and for their children, the Lord is preparing us to fight for what we believe. How does He prepare us? By assuring us, not only of the trials to come, but of the certainty of victory now that He has revealed His might. There is such wonder, such hope for eternal happiness in the true Christian religion. Yet no worthwhile love will ever be ours to keep until it has faced its challenges. There must be a time of weeping: our merciful Lord weeping over our struggles and giving us strength from mercy; our dreams and hopes weeping when we fear they are lost. Through the trial we express our commitment to our dreams, and He delivers us.

Less than twenty four hours before His arrest the Lord spoke again about weeping. At the Last Supper He said, "Most truly I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice." But He did not stop there. "And you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you."

When He was crucified and rose again, they must have thought that now His words were fulfilled. Now they had found the joy which no one could take from them. Perhaps when they suffered at the hands of persecutors and found joy among fellow-Christians they thought the same. And finally, when they had fought their private battles, and from His power overcome the enemy within, they knew what He really meant.

"Jesus wept over the city." "Weep for yourselves and for your children." Our love of the truth will be threatened and with it our hope for true faith and true charity. It was to that end that He came into the world and rode in triumph and drank of the cup of rejection and apparent death - to be able to turn our sorrow into joy. Therefore He could also say, "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Amen.

(références: Luke 19:29-44, 23:24-38)

639. Standing before the God of the earth, signifies which are the Divine things proceeding from the Lord, and are His in heaven and in the church. This is evident from the signification of "the God of the earth," as being the Lord, who is the God of heaven and earth, and particularly the God of the church in heaven and in the world; for in the Word "the earth" signifies the church, and the church is both in heaven and in the world. "The earth" means heaven and also the church there, because there are lands in the spiritual world, like as in the natural world, and in external appearance they are altogether similar in that world as in this; this is why "the God of the earth" means the God of heaven and earth, and particularly the God of the church in heaven and in the world. That the Lord is the God of heaven and earth He Himself teaches in Matthew:

Jesus said, All power hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18).

The above is evident also from the signification of "standing before Him," as meaning the being [esse] from Him, and thus what is His in heaven and in the church.

[2] In the Word it is here and there said of angels and of the men of the church that "they stand before God," also that "they walk before Him," and in the spiritual sense "to stand before God" signifies being from Him, and "to walk before God" signifies to live according to being [esse] from Him; for all the being [esse] of heaven and the world proceeds from the Lord; for it is the Divine proceeding that has created and formed all things of heaven and the world; this Divine proceeding is called "the Word" in John 1:1-3; and "the Word" there is the Divine proceeding, which is called Divine truth, from which all things were made and created. Because this extends itself in every direction about the Lord as a sun, it is properly said "to stand before Him," for it looks to the Lord as its common center, from every quarter and from every boundary. This is, in its essence, the Lord in heaven, for it is the Divine proceeding, and that which proceeds is of Him from whom it proceeds, and indeed is Himself; just as the heat and light that proceed from the sun are of the sun. For this reason all angels, who are recipients of this Divine proceeding, which is called Divine truth, turn themselves to the Lord, and thus are continually in His presence; for, as was said, the Divine proceeding looks to the Lord as its center from which it is and to which it looks; so also do the angels, who are the recipients of Divine truths, and are as it were Divine truths in form. This is why angels are said "to stand before the Lord," for "to stand" is properly predicated of Divine truth, because this stands about the Lord as a sun.

[3] "To stand before God" signifies to be in Divine truth, and thus with the Lord, also in the following passages. In Luke:

The angel said, I am Gabriel, that standeth before God (Luke 1:19).

In the first book of Kings:

I saw Jehovah sitting on His throne, and all the hosts of the heavens standing beside Him on His right hand and on His left (1 Kings 22:19).

In Jeremiah:

There shall not be cut off from Jonadab a man to stand before Me all the days (Jeremiah 35:19).

In David:

On my right hand standeth the queen in the best gold of Ophir (Psalms 45:9).

In Luke:

Be ye wakeful at every season, that ye may be accounted worthy to stand before the Son of man (Luke 21:36).

In Revelation:

The great day of His anger is come, and who is able to stand? (Revelation 6:17)

All the angels stood around the throne, and the elders and the four animals (Revelation 7:11).

I saw the seven angels who stood before God (Revelation 8:2).

In Zechariah:

The two olive trees and two berries of olives, which are the two sons of the olive tree standing beside the Lord of the whole earth (Zechariah 4:11, 12, 14).

And in other places. It is also said of the Lord Himself that "He stood to judge," because it is said of the Divine proceeding from the Lord, which is called the Divine truth, for judgment is from it. Thus it is said in Isaiah:

Jehovah hath stood up to plead, and standeth to judge (Isaiah 3:13).

And in David:

God stood in the congregation of God, in the midst of the gods He will judge (Psalms 82:1.)

"The congregation of God," and the "gods" in the midst of whom Jehovah stood, mean the angels, by whom in the spiritual sense Divine truths are signified; and because the Lord in heaven is the Divine truth He is here said "to stand." This makes clear that "to stand before the God of the earth" signifies the Divine proceeding from the Lord, which is His in heaven and in the church; that this, and those who are in this, are meant can be seen also from this, "to stand before the God of the earth" is predicated of "the two olive trees" and "the two lampstands," and these signify good and truth, and thus the Divine proceeding. (See also in the preceding article, n. 638)