This week on the extraordinary story. Jesus stages an intervention for the Pharisees. And for me, too. In a way, we will discuss the seven woes of the Pharisees and a surprising hero who is the opposite of what they are.

In this episode of The Extraordinary Story, we are with Jesus during the last week before his death, where we learn how two challenges from his opponents provoked Jesus to share wisdom that has changed the course of history. We will discover who asked him to pay taxes, and why his answer addresses the fundamental problems of alienation in the world today. We will also address what it means to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

As Jesus faces his imminent death in the final week of his earthly life, he reveals that the end goal of history is marriage. We'll learn in what way Jesus considers his relationship with us a marriage, why we wont be married to our spouses in heaven, and how to fight the darkness that threatens to swallow us whole while we wait for the wedding.

As the incarnation of of Son of God approaches its most dramatic moment, Jesus urgently decides to... tell some stories. In this episode, we'll learn why the stories Jesus tells in the last week of his life actually are very urgent, and why Jesus focuses here on stories about work. Along the way, we'll learn what kind of "boss" God is, what kind of work he expects us to do, and what's at stake if we fail.

We return to Jerusalem on the morning after Jesus's triumphal entry as he curses a fig tree. We'll learn why he did such a strange thing, why he insisted to Greeks that he himself was a grain of wheat, and what all of this reveals about the Garden of Eden - and ourselves. This episode is all about the “nature logic” of the Gospel, and the way the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is woven into the very fabric of the cosmos.

You have to die before you can live. Jesus' paradoxical teaching about the "grain of wheat" may seem strange at first, but as St. Cyril of Alexandria, Pope Benedict XVI, and Larry Chapp point out, it's written all over the natural world for us to see plainly, foreshadowing the redemptive suffering of Jesus on the cross and echoing the eternal life and love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:02 Reading of Matthew 18: Jesus Curses the Fig Tree
• 01:41 Why is Jesus hungry?
• 02:31 The importance of a fig tree in the Gospel
• 03:42 God is working to restore paradise for all creation
• 04:41 The Garden of Eden and gardens in the Gospels
• 07:12 God is the gardener of salvation history. Examples in the Old Testament
• 08:27 Jesus’ action is foreshadowed by the prophet Ezekiel
• 09:44 It was “not the season for figs” but God expects fruit anyway
• 10:11 Jesus teaches about the “dying seed”
• 12:19 St. Cyril of Alexandria and the “analogy of nature”
• 13:21 Cardinal Ratzinger explains the “mystery of the dying grain”
• 14:41 Larry Chap and the mystery of redemptive suffering
• 15:11 Reading of John 12 - “He who loses his life will save it”
• 16:43 Suffering on earth is an image of the inner life of the Trinity
• 17:17 Jesus “leaned obedience through what he suffered”
• 19:24 The Fathers of the Church took the Gospel’s “nature logic” seriously
• 20:43 St. Clement of Alexandria: The Word of God is the pruning knife of the soul
• 22:20 Reading of Luke 13: Jesus’ parable of the master’s vineyard
• 23:46 Application of the parable
• 24:19 Conclusion

For more content from Benedictine College, visit media.benedictine.edu

The Extraordinary Story is a podcast about the life of Jesus Christ, who entered the maze of our world to transform it into a path to Him, today and always. The Extraordinary Story is produced by Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, and is written and hosted by Tom Hoopes.

This week, we follow Jesus in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and discover the raw power of Jesus alone on a donkey. We'll learn why a donkey is a more kingly steed than a chariot. We'll learn what it means that God's kingdom is "already, but not yet." And we'll learn what the wrath of God looks like from God's perspective.

Today's episode begins the story of the single week that changed all of history. It is a story about a conqueror who commanded no army, had no weapons, and made no attempt at self-defense - a conqueror who did nothing but teach, and pray, and suffer, and die.

• 00:00 Introduction
• 00:57 Jesus is no ordinary worldly conqueror
• 02:50 John 12:12-19 - Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem
• 03:58 Previous “triumphal entries” of Jerusalem’s conquerors
• 04:26 Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the Temple of Solomon
• 05:41 Alexander the Great enters Jerusalem
• 06:52 Jesus enters the city on a donkey
• 07:14 What does the donkey mean in prophecy?
• 09:00 Other theories about the donkey
• 09:31 The Kumran Community theory
• 09:47 The donkey points us towards Jesus’ identity and mission
• 11:06 The Triumphal Entry is a fulfilment of Christmas prophecy
• 11:45 Jesus is ‘the prophet’ Moses foretold
• 12:17 The Kingdom of God is “already, but not yet”
• 12:47 Jesus’ entrance is like VE Day from World War II
• 13:53 Bishop Robert Barron: “God rules through his viceroys”
• 14:17 We are under the lordship of the True King in Christ
• 15:53 Jesus and the repentant thief
• 16:42 The Festival of Booths and its relevance to the triumphal entry
• 19:30 The Cleansing of the Temple
• 20:10 Jesus wants to restore the temple to its Edenic significance
• 21:11 God’s wrath and Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the temple
• 23:17 Jesus intends to restore all of our ‘temples’ as well
• 24:03 Conclusion

The Extraordinary Story is a podcast about the life of Jesus Christ, who entered the maze of our world to transform it into a path to Him, today and always. The Extraordinary Story is produced by Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, and is written and hosted by Tom Hoopes.

Welcome back to The Extraordinary Story, a podcast about the life of Christ. Season Four will guide us through the final week of Jesus’ life as he approaches the ‘hour’ for which he came: death on a cross. But Tom Hoopes has done some thinking during the break, and returns with a fresh perspective to share with us about why all of this even matters in the first place.

Why does Jesus need to die at all? Is God just so angry at humanity that he needs to kill his Son to calm down? (Spoiler: He’s not.) We’ll learn about Tom Vander Woude’s heroic death and how it reveals a deep truth about Jesus’s sacrifice. In addition, we’ll get a glimpse at the big picture of salvation history, how Christianity changed (and changes) everything, and why the “Our Father” is God’s game plan to bring back Eden, forever.

• 0:00 - Introduction
• 2:55 - The death of Tom Vander Woude
• 6:32 - Tom Vander Woude’s life and death models Christ’s sacrifice
• 9:22 - What does Jesus’ death really accomplish?
• 10:14 - Is God the Father thirsty for blood?
• 11:30 - Jesus took our place in the sewage to push us out of it
• 13:49 - Christ experienced every type of suffering for us
• 15:49 - The “Our Father” prayer is a blueprint
• 18:35 - “Thy Kingdom Come” and the covenants in Scripture
• 18:58 - God plans to restore Eden
• 20:26 - The Gospel, revisited
• 21:54 - What is “The Sign of Jonah”?
• 24:05 - The explosive growth of early Christianity
• 25:27 - How Christianity radically reshaped the whole world
• 27:05 - The irony of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy
• 28:53 - Summary and conclusion

Tom Vander Woude’s Legacy: https://media.benedictine.edu/you-pull-ill-push-tom-vander-woudes-legacy

A Father’s Sacrifice (Focus on the Family): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im9_iAQhd5E

Jesus is back at dinner again with Martha, her sister Mary, and Lazarus. There's a growing sense of doom in the air. It's the feeling we all know too well - that something is about to go terribly wrong, and we're not sure what. Mary takes out a jar of ointment, and everyone would have been impressed when they saw it, because it was worth a year's wages all on its own. They are even more astounded when she pours the whole thing out on Jesus's feet. Suddenly, the hidden menace they felt all along takes on a face and a voice as Judas Iscariot himself speaks up.

The Extraordinary Story is a podcast about the life of Jesus Christ, who entered the maze of our world to give us his Cross as a ladder up and out. The Extraordinary Story is produced by Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, and is written and hosted by Tom Hoopes.