So Jesus came, Jesus died, Jesus rose, and Jesus conquered. After going through the Gospels, what else is left to say? “How to Buy Drugs From Desperate Panicked Criminals With Guns” is one of the essays I wrote at the University of Arizona before I dropped out and had to restart my life. I wrote it about the experiences I had leaving my home at age 16 and encountering some of the worst of what America in that time and place had to offer. I have been telling the Extraordinary Story of Jesus Christ and I have been sharing struggles I had in my faith life. This week I start to tell the tale of how the blood Jesus shed on Calvary got to my ancestors in El Salvador, and Mexico, and Kansas. Because while I get that Jesus Christ was alive 2,000 years ago, in the year 0-something AD, what difference does that make in the year 2000-something “C.E.”? That is what will come next in Jesus Christ’s Extraordinary Story.

Holy Week episodes to check out:

Why Did Jesus Have To Die? | S4 E1

Jesus’ Triumphal Entry on a Donkey | S4 E2

The Agony in the Garden | S4 E12

Why Jesus Carries the Cross for Us | S4 E15

The life of Jesus gets strange on this episode of The Extraordinary Story. According to some prominent religious art, this is the episode where he flies into the sky. And according to snake handlers, this is the episode where he gives us all sorts of crazy powers. But I want to show how it doesn't have to seem so strange after all, and then finish my evidence for the resurrection with the most powerful evidence of all. 

In this episode of The Extraordinary Story, I want to share with you the story of a scholar who poked holes in the resurrection story — and then I want to let you know how I fill those holes in. If you've been following this podcast from the beginning, you know that there’s a long gap between season two and season three. That's because I went on a journey, an intellectual journey, as the work of one honest Christian scholar made me question a lot of what I had taken for granted about the resurrection. Today I present to you evidence for the resurrection.

Remember when you made that crazy promise to God where you said you'd do anything for him? Remember, you laughed it off later as too enthusiastic and figured he laughed it off too. Well, Peter finds out the hard way that no, he didn't laugh it off. We will look at the second to last resurrection appearance in the Gospels today, and see the apostles who are supposed to be fishers of men. Go back to just fishing and wind up catching God himself. 

Jesus had a busy day after he rose from the dead. We are still right there with him on Easter evening as he visits the Twelve Apostles. Or 10 anyway: Judas was gone and Thomas couldn’t make it. Jesus gives surprising evidence of the Resurrection and helps the Apostles understood exactly why this all happened this way. Then Thomas shows up …

It’s Easter afternoon and two disciples are leaving town in a hurry in the wake of Jesus’s death.  There are some very strange features to this story. Why don’t they recognize Jesus? Why does he do such a strange miracle? This episode asks these questions and shares one hot take on a longstanding mystery: Who was the unnamed disciple headed out of town with Cleopas? It all adds up to a story tailor made for 21st century skeptics.

Today we will be looking at the first people to encounter the risen Jesus, which happened to be women. We will talk about how this was awkward for the first disciples, but kind of great for us today. We'll start to notice also how different the different people's encounters with Jesus after the resurrection were, and ask for the first time, but not the last, why? We will also note the surprising details of Mary Magdalene's encounter with Jesus. And I will give my personal theory on whether or not Jesus met his mother after the resurrection. 

Jesus died on Good Friday. He was in the ground on Holy Saturday, but now it's Sunday morning. Now we get to the good part, the triumph, the redemption. There are a number of resurrection experiences to talk about, but we'll start early on Easter morning at first light, when Mary Magdalene, then Peter, then John saw the inside of the tomb.

What they saw changed everything. 

The Lord is dead. Jesus bowed his head and breathed his last in the previous episode of The Extraordinary Story. But now, even before he is sealed in his tomb, astonishing things begin to happen. The Gospel of John shares a surprising detail that echoes back to the Samaritan woman at the well and passed back through salvation history all the way to Eden. Then when Jesus is buried, his power that shook the earth pushes his children up and out of the depths of sin and into the streets of Jerusalem. What will it mean for us? 

Today on the extraordinary story, we will walk with Jesus up the hill of Calvary carrying a cross, and ask again, "Why did Jesus have to die?" Paul says he did it to save us from the wrath of God. How is that okay? And then we will see what happens when Jesus takes up the cross of our sin and it knocks him down. Why is it that the Son of God Himself has to walk such a terrible road? And why do we have to take up crosses to follow him?