Hosannah Before the Cross – Pastor Preston Whiteman – March 29, 2026

Pastor Preston Whiteman message for Sunday March 29, 2026. 

Welcome to the Northwest Church of the Nazarene podcast, where we share the heart of our church’s mission: discovering and engaging in a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ through inspired worship and intentional ministry. Each episode brings you sermons, insights, and messages that challenge and encourage spiritual growth. Whether you are part of our diverse, multicultural church family, or listening in for the first time, you’ll find a community that loves Jesus and welcomes everyone with open arms. Join us online at nwnaz.org or in person in Columbus Ohio, as we journey together toward a deeper, more meaningful relationship with Jesus and each other. 

Transcript

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Every Sunday at Northwest Church of the Nazarene in Columbus, Ohio, a congregation is challenged to grow spiritually. This podcast shares the sermons, insights, and messages that encourage our congregation to mature spiritually.

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My wife and I have a couple other well, we have a lot of different pastor friends, considering I'm a pastor and I go to pastor things and talk to a bunch of other pastors. So we have a bunch of other pastor friends. But uh we have some a pastor friend from college named Casey Middle, and we were talking to him and his wife about meeting up and hanging out. You know, things that you do with friends, old friends from college and just talk to them about things. Uh and you know, everybody's busy these days, we're all busy, and so we she was asking, Brittany was asking Zoe, Casey's wife, you know, like, is there any time available anytime soon? And they were talking about weekends, and then Zoe said, one of the weekends, no, we're busy because we have what is known as donkey basketball. Donkey basketball sounds insane to me. Has anybody actually seen donkey basketball in real life? Okay, I didn't think so. So I we me and Brittany immediately looked it up and said, What is donkey basketball? And it said online, well, you know, it's a normal school fundraiser, and I went through all the normal school fundraisers, you know, bake sales, cookie sales, cookie dough sales. And donkey basketball didn't happen to be in the top 20, probably, of normal school fundraisers. Uh but here I'm gonna go ahead and have a clip be shown of it. Uh just a real quick. So we all know that donkeys are known as stubborn animals, but the thing is, I mean when we watch that clip, it doesn't seem like anybody on the court's having fun. I know I'm having fun while I'm watching it. But donkey basketball is this fundraiser, and we looked it up ourselves. It's like$250 to host it from this company. And apparently there's like no mess left afterwards. So maybe an NYC fundraiser coming down the pipeline. But uh maybe for the next NYC. But donkey basketball is where you, you know, it a lot of times it's rallied together with the community. You grab some people, uh, like uh there's one I saw online where it was firefighters and um policemen, where there was a firefighters versus police, and what you do for the fundraiser is like you do like a$6 admission, and then like there's prizes to go home with, and you can uh bet on which donkey is gonna allow the rider to ride it the most. Because as you saw, some of those guys were having a lot of difficulty hopping onto the donkeys in the first place. Uh I did watch one where like a guy just got gut-kicked by a donkey at one point trying to get on it. And imagine just being on the court trying to get onto those donkeys. I bet for the most part, it might feel embarrassing or it might feel funny. The thing is, whenever you sign up for that thing, you have to understand that if you're getting on a donkey, uh, you have to be okay with being humiliated in front of everybody. Because the donkey itself, as you saw, did not cooperate. It's not like a dog where you can ask it to sit nicely and hop on it. This, as you saw, the donkey was trying to get down the court, probably away from the guy who's trying to get on it in the first place, not that it gets to the other side. Uh, but again, this is something where it was very like awkward to go through, probably. Awkward to be in. And again, you have to be okay with being humiliated, and you have to be okay with being laughed at in the first place. And when we we talk about donkeys, donkeys often aren't the first animal we think of when we come to transportation animals, when we think of that. When we talk about transportation animals, we're not thinking mostly of donkeys. Well, donkeys do help, obviously. We know that many people do use donkeys, but not in America. When we think about transportation animals, we think about horses. We think about how horses are big, powerful, they get the job done. That's an American way, pretty much, is we think about what's the best way to do it, how can we get to that, and how do we accomplish that? And the best way to do it, oftentimes, is a horse, not a donkey. Because as you saw, them trying to mount a donkey was equivalent of them pretty much diving onto the donkey and trying to get as much of a grasp as they can, as it's running away from them. So again, donkeys are not a number one choice, and most people think of donkeys as kind of stupid animals and uh stubborn animals, and I don't think I disagree with some of that. Uh but I don't want to ever call any of God's creation stupid, just more stubborn. Uh stubborn. Uh and there's a reason there's an expression as like stubborn as a mule as well. So it's there there's reason to it. Uh and I looked it up online and I don't know if I believe the scientist, even though I probably should. Apparently, it's not that they're stubborn, it's that they're making choices, just at a slower pace, uh, or choices over and over again, which I define as stubborn. Uh but again, the this sport isn't built around the winning horse, the winning thing. It wasn't built around the most competitive thing. It's built around being silly. Donkey basketball, and they also, side note, they have donkey baseball, which is just as absurd. Uh and I don't know how you'd even do it because you hit the ball and then try to hop on the donkey to get to the base. Uh again, NYC fundraiser coming down the pipeline. Uh me and Pastor Sam could be team leads, but uh again, horses are known as the better thing. You know, any anywhere we look in society, when you're looking at races for animals, you're not looking well, first off, cheetahs are the fastest, obviously. But you're not looking that that because we can't ride a cheetah. What you're looking at is horses because they're the fastest, pretty much, that we can ride. And so you see horse races, uh, you see the Kentucky Derby, and you the many races underneath that. You see different things like we see the Amish uh slowing us down on the road, but it it is the fastest form of transportation they're using with animal with it. Uh then you see different uh, you know, some military will ride horses at ceremony, or different police officers will ride a horse in a parade, or different people ride horses. They're not riding donkeys. It's the last choice, you know, they probably would. Uh or it's probably not the last choice, but it's probably nowhere near the top 20 of the first choice of riding into the parade. Uh oftentimes I'm sure it's different breeds of horses. So it's not the first pick for anybody. And it's not the first pick for probably most people. And I will say back in Roman times, they did have horses. And so we we talk about Palm Sunday in the scripture of Palm Sunday. We talk about, specifically, we're talking about Matthew 21, 1 through 11 today, talking about how Jesus calls for a donkey. You know, it's the not usually picked animal to ride in on. If you wanted to make a presence of yourself like the Roman military did, you would have ride in like a horse. You want to have, oftentimes, when you're trying to show yourself as a flashy king, you want to have a very tall, very big horse to show off the power of who you are, show a presence to everybody. And so Jesus chose a donkey, and we're gonna go ahead and read that scripture. So as they approached in Jerusalem and came to Bethage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go to the village ahead of you, and once you will find a donkey there, or tied there, with her colt by her side, untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away. This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet. Say to the daughter Zion, see your king come see you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and a colt the full of a donkey. The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna, the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, Who is this? The crowds answered, This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. So this story oftentimes is preached as a bit of a subversion of a military march into the city. They know that their king's gonna come running, riding in on a donkey. And so these people who are screaming, Hosanna, waving palm branches, because palm branches at that time at that time was known as victory. It was a sign of victory. So they were like, oh, we're victorious now. We're we're wherever we need to be. But in their hearts and in their minds, honestly, that was probably further from the truth. But what I'd rather talk about today is the humanity itself of Jesus. See, Jesus was fully human and fully God. And there was, it wasn't a 50-50 deal. There was no half-es on both. It's a paradox that we can't understand fully because we are human. We can't understand what it means to be more than human. We can't understand what it means to be God. And so going back to the donkey for one second, Jesus, this man who is known as the shepherd, chooses lambs. You know, donkeys aren't the first pick, or chooses sheep. Donkeys aren't the first pick, and if you were to choose an intelligent animal, sheep wouldn't even be close to the top. But oftentimes, and this is I don't ever take it as an insult because I realize it's true. Sheep are dumb animals, is the easiest way to say it. Sheep are stupid. Sheep are there's no other way to say it. Sheep just do not know how to live. They don't have survival instincts. Uh if an animal would come up to maul them, they'd just sit there and take it. They're not gonna run away. They don't they don't have the thoughts and they follow the crowd. And so you just see a herd of sheep without a shepherd, they're just following each other. They don't have any direction. They just follow what the next person's doing in front of them. So if the next person's doing the same thing, they're just gonna go in circles. And one of the huge things that you can tell is you know bad about sheep is if you were to leave sheep in the same spot, they would graze and graze and graze until the grass is all gone, and then they would starve to death. Even with grass readily available around them, they would sit there and starve to death because they're following what the next person does, and the next person realizes there's no food. So they all realize there's no food, and they just sit there because they have no direction. They need a leader. And so when you hear that and you hear Jesus compares us to sheep all the time, you know, I don't ever get insulted at it, but it's like it's it's revealing about our character. He chooses the things that aren't the top of the, you know, cream of the crop, and chooses to restore them for his glory. And so knowing that he's intending to restore us to the glory of Eden, glory of being sinless creations in him. I like to talk about uh the journey to the cross with this. Because that's honestly what I was thinking, or what I think he would be thinking on this riding on a donkey into Jerusalem. This journey in on a donkey. You know, he could have been thinking about these people are praising me, and he probably did think about that in all reality. Uh but he probably was also thinking about how he's gonna be crucified soon. I'd like to imagine that going through his head and the fact that he knew what he was gonna go through, and I'm gonna talk about the crucifixion and its process for a moment, probably like five minutes, and it it's gonna be really detailed and it's gonna possibly grow some people out. But I think sometimes within our church, in the modern church today, not just our church, but all churches, we forget how impactful and how awful the crucifixion was to Jesus, and we forget how much of an emotional sacrifice, a mental sacrifice Jesus went through rather than just the physical sacrifice. Because Jesus, again, Jesus was human. Jesus felt pain, he felt sadness, he cried. Jesus had emotions, he wasn't just a monotone figure. And I think that's something that we sometimes need to take in when we look at Jesus as a human. Now, the Romans designed a crucifixion to be probably one of the most painful deaths ever imaginable. It was not an easy process for the person being crucified. Of course, they could have just beheaded people, but that was too easy. That's a quick death. Crucifixion is designed to be torturous in every single step. And every single part of the way, it's designed to be torturous. Now, with Jesus, what they did initially is they whipped him with a Roman flagum. Now, if you're unfamiliar with that, what it is, is it's a whip. But at the end of the whip, at the end of the tails, embedded are spiked metal balls. And those spiked metal balls will tear in the flesh. So they whipped him many times in the back. It broke his bones, probably. You don't think so, Sam? It didn't? Oh, my bad. But well, oftentimes it broke his bones. Or broke people's bones. Oftentimes it broke people's bones, it teared up flesh, blood would be coming out. So you'd these people would have open wounds going into crucifixion, most likely. Because most likely when people were crucified, it wasn't just death that they were sentenced to, it was multiple different things that they got tortured for and then sentenced to death on the cross. Uh so just starting out, he already has open wounds. Jesus has open wounds when he's going to the cross. And so we don't know for sure uh whether it was a full cross that was already made, or if it was just the crossbar that he was to be crucified to that they gave him to carry. Uh that's not set exactly anywhere. But we know he carried something and he carried it, and he most likely carried it fully on his back. Now, I'm my belief is they probably didn't have the greatest care for cutting the wood nicely and evenly whenever they gave it to them, they were probably just giving them wood that would have withstand their body weight enough to put it on the you know tree that they would crucify them on, or enough to just carry them in general when they were being put up there. So my thoughts when I think about that is imagine just walking along the road, carrying that cross, open wound on your back, splintering wood, digging into it. It's gruesome and terrifying to think of. Our savior goes through this thing where he he has to carry this torturous device. And again, it's it's torturous by design. This wasn't a they stumbled upon it, they thought about this. It was a meticulous thing. The wood bore into his back, most likely, every single step. Imagine it going up and down and up and down, rubbing into it, really digging into the wound, adding splinters to it, adding pain to it. And then he did have somebody else help him bring it to the cross. But the crucifixion and the torture doesn't even stop there. The cross itself, the crucifixion on the cross, and we have a cross right beside us. The cross itself was brutal. It was an endurance race of trying to stay alive on top of it. Not to mention the fact that whenever you're put up, your hands are pretty much shattered from a nail being driven through it. And it's not just like a quick shh with a power drill. It's a pounding and pounding and pounding and pounding until it's in there. It'd be brutal for that. I I can't even think about going into any sort of surgery without anesthesia. And I'm a wimp with needles. I I'm so afraid of that. And I'm sure people here dread going into surgery even if they know they're gonna come out fine on the other side. I mean, Jesus knows that he'll be fine on the other side. This is something that he'll have to do. And I think in that humanity, he probably still dreaded it. I just sit there and try to imagine putting myself in Jesus' shoes and how he would feel in that moment. Because again, Jesus was fully God, but again, fully human, fully bringing on the mentality that I'm dying here. And again, he knew going on this walk or going on this ride on the donkey that this was all happening. He knew this torture was gonna happen, he knew this pain was gonna happen. And on the cross, he knew his hands would be nailed to it, his feet would be nailed to it, and he knew one of the worst parts would be coming next in order to breathe, because the way that the cross constructed the body, or constricted the body more so, is it would crush the chest, making it hard to breathe. So what they did to breathe is they had to lift themselves on their pinned hands to even give themselves a respite, a breath. Even give a singular second of breathing. And I imagine, because you know, you can't sustain that for a while, they had to let themselves back down. And I imagine that wound on their back is just being opened once more again, scraping against that wood. Again, this was I I want to emphasize this was a torturous, intentional, laborist process for the person who's being crucified. And this was known through this world to be a scary process. It was absolutely terrifying for anybody who saw it. And they did that on purpose, because these people were often crucified on roads outside the towns. And it's kind of like how you see a guard today if they have like a gun or something like that. You know, if you mess with them, something will happen. This is to say, if you mess with us in this town, this is what might happen to you. It's a warning. But the thing is, I'd I'd rather be shot than crucified because being shot and killed pretty quickly is much better than having to be tortured by my own attempt of living. And so Jesus, again, he's on this road, and these people are yelling, Hosanna, Hosanna, save us, Lord, save us, Lord, thinking that Him coming is going to be this giant military victory, and I know I'm not trying to preach wholly on that, but it's they're they're singing his praises and so thankful that he's here and so so excited. But I wonder what Jesus was feeling on that donkey. those people were most likely yelling crucify him crucify him crucify him they were trying not to trying but they they wanted him crucified on that cross the same people who are probably singing Hosanno our Lord's here they're they're waving the palms in victory they're so excited we're asking for their king to be crucified imagine Jesus going on this road knowing that these people would be yelling crucify him soon imagine the feelings I know it'd be probably dread probably you know I don't say I mean there's no fear with the Lord but I'm sure that the Lord had something similar to it not wanting to feel all that pain because nobody wants to feel pain and the Lord doesn't want to feel pain I know that but he feels pain whenever we're separated from him he feels pain and sadness whenever we're gone and Jesus probably felt pain in that moment watching all those people singing Hosanna the Lord is here because he knew that wasn't going to last long you know a lot of people after he died on the cross just went back to their regular lives. Actually after he was arrested a lot of the disciples went back to their regular lives went back to fishing and went back to other things because it was over they saw it as all over the victory was not won. The victory that they had while they were singing with the palm branches that's all gone to them imagine Jesus knowing that all the closest people that he had spent three years with day in, day out every single second with who were there at that victory party that they were kind of throwing would just turn away once he was on that cross he knew this going into this whole process. There's no surprise to him in this our Lord Christ was real. He understood all this he wasn't just a God figure he was human and God and it's important for us to realize that God had emotions that God felt and God still feels today. I'm speaking in the past tense like Jesus isn't still alive. I need to actually speak like he is alive but God feels for us he's there in our moments he's real with us he when we're sad he's sad with us when we're grieving he's there right beside us he is real he is absolutely real now that doesn't always solve what we humanly see as a problem but the thing is he is real and he's also humble himself again he didn't ride in on this massive white horse that would have been seen as like a military victory. He rode in on this donkey he is a real human person but he's also humble and this can be expressed in when he was washing feet of the disciples and this was right like about a week before he was it was Passover time from what I understand or maybe a week out from crucifixion specifically he got down on his knees and washed these disciples' feet and they was willing to get in there and if you really think about it it is gross what they probably had on their feet they were walking probably through dirt and mud and animal crap to put it lightly uh they it was they were probably covered in caked and grossness but Jesus was willing to do that job and that was a job that was done normally you'll see that in the Bible it was done uh but the thing is this is the sort of job where it's you look at the highest in command and you go well I'm I could have somebody below me do that and somebody below me do that and eventually it gets to the bottom and that's what the bottom's going to be doing. This is what servants did. This isn't what people did. This isn't what a what a king is supposed to do. A king that they were celebrating later with the palm branch was cleaning their feet. He got down and was humble enough and Peter refuses and they go through a whole thing about Peter doing it. But then Jesus does talk about how he knows that one of them will betray him during that foot washing he's still willing to get down onto his knees and wash the feet of the person who is going to betray him after spending three close years with him. He's willing to wash the feet of him he's willing to do the job that nobody else wants to do for him such as even getting on the cross the job that nobody wants to do but he does it for them it's humbling to think about how much Jesus lowered himself from heaven to human while also still being God. He could have made it so he didn't feel any pain on this world. He could have made it so he didn't suffer he could have made it so he didn't have any bad things afflict him but he chose to live life fully as a human and it was the only way to redeem us in all reality Jesus was human. And I I'd like to think about how the fact that he is a friend to us as well. He can be masterfully a friend and friends are wonderful things to have and one of my favorite stories about Jesus having a friend is Lazarus and I think this shows Jesus' humanity so extremely well because you know he knew that he was going to resurrect Lazarus right he knew that Lazarus was going to die he knew it was going to be fine but when the news of Lazarus his sickness and his dying came Jesus still cried He cried and I think that just as a side note I think that shows us today even as adults it's okay to have those emotions and be anxious and worry and sad whenever something happens. We don't have to power through it. The Lord of the universe who can control everything still cried over his friend's death even though he knew it was going to be okay it's okay to weep over a friend it's okay to weep over a friend's hurt sadness pain. If you ever find yourself questioning it don't it's okay but if you look at it Jesus his good friend Lazarus was going to be fine he was going to be resurrected and be with us but Jesus was human he had emotions he is still that 100% human he has those emotions today again I need to stop talking in the past tense but that's beside the point so Jesus when I think about this procession where they see it as a victory march he probably saw as a march to his death he saw it as an anxious runway maybe not anxious I don't know if it'd be anxious necessarily but there's probably fear and not desiring to die a gruesome death in it I don't think there's easily a human word that I can describe it with what he was feeling but he did it knowing that we would be the ones betraying him someday he knew that on this march you know we may say well I can't believe those people were you know saying Lord save us you're wonderful you're awesome and then saying crucify in the next week we do that today sometimes and I'm I'm guilty of it too I have absolutely been guilty of it where I have taken Jesus' grace for granted I've done something at points that I'm not you know I'm not proud of uh and I try to take it as well as I can in stride but the thing is we have been those people before where we're like oh Jesus is wonderful Jesus is awesome and then the next day we're betraying him by going against his will going by against his trust going against his desire but the thing is Jesus grieves that and Jesus is sad about that but Jesus wants us to become better and become closer with him. Jesus didn't just become a human and die because only to save us he came because he wanted a relationship with us. The Old Testament values and rituals were not working because there was no relationship. Jesus wanted that relationship he wanted to know us better. He wanted to be a friend with us he wanted to be humble and love us. He wanted to serve us he wanted to care for us and he did this all knowing that he would live a painful human real death but the thing is whenever I go back to that description that gruesome description I talked about I like to think about any time that he was being hit in the back with that whip, he was thinking wow this is worth it for ye. This is worth it for Sarah, this is worth it for Emmanuel anytime he was pulling himself back up on that cross to try to breathe saying it's worth it for Todd, it's worth it for Shannon it's worth it for Gabriel it's worth it for these guys. He knew proactively that he'd be saying it's worth it to try to love Judas on that cross. It's worth it to try to love all of them on that cross even though they are going to betray me I'm thinking he's thinking every time he's pulling himself up it's worth it our God has so much love and grace for us that it defeats the power of the sin that we have in our lives. And that grace is so much greater than you can ever imagine. And I like to put the grace that Jesus has for us in the context of the cross because if we forget that the that the death on the cross was not an easy one then I forget the gr I think sometimes we forget the weight that the grace has for us and that the grace has against the sin that is in our lives. Because we may sin we may turn our backs we may be saying Lord you are amazing Hosanna Hosanna is Hosanna in the highest and then after church we go and sin but Jesus still wants us in his kingdom Jesus still wants us even going through all of the pain and blood and sacrifice and tears and absolute miserable death Jesus said it's absolutely worth it for these people now I just have one question for you guys. Is Jesus' sacrifice worth it to you to believe in him? Is it powerful enough because I can tell you it is powerful enough for you. Let's go ahead and pray. Dear Lord thank you for your sacrifice on the cross help us to let it never be in vain help it to never be seen as an easy process help us to know that your sacrifice was real your sacrifice was true that you lived a real life and you are living still but you still feel pain and sadness and that you are not a monotone God that is not out of our reach but right beside us. He is available he is always available and help us to always seek you in those moments and reflect when we are about to sin that you did sacrifice yourself for a reason you sacrificed yourself for us and you did it with love.

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Every single second you did it with love thank you it's your name we pray amen as it is known in our community Northwest Church is committed to discovering and engaging in a life changing relationship with Jesus Christ with inspired worship and attention ministry is family as the first perfect