For those of us who find ourselves centered in the structures of the Empire, our conception of the world has often been so shaped by the powers of death that we struggle to recognize resurrection life when it springs forth around us. We have become so enmeshed in the structures that sustain our power and privilege that we cannot imagine that a new and abundant life could even be possible.

Disbelief at the Center

The sequence of resurrection appearances in Luke’s Gospel bears witness to this reality. It is the Eleven disciples Luke names as Jesus’s apostles (Luke 6:13-16) who have the hardest time grasping the world-changing events of Jesus’s resurrection. It takes Luke three full stories to describe the process of the Eleven realizing that Jesus was indeed alive and the world forever changed. According to Luke, awareness of the resurrection comes first to the women, then to some previously unnamed disciples, and then only belated to the Eleven, who had believed by their titles that they were the true bearers of the ministry of Jesus.

In the first story (Luke 24:1-12), heavenly messengers appear to the women who had followed Jesus, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and an untold number of “other women with them” (24:10). The angels open up the scriptures to them, explaining that Jesus has been raised from the dead. Yet when the women return to the Eleven, the apostles consider the women’s report to be but “an idle tale” (24:11).

Yet according to Luke, women had always been crucial to the life and ministry Jesus, from Elizabeth and Mary to Anna the prophetess to the sisters Martha and Mary to Mary Magdalene. That the annunciation of Jesus’s birth had long ago been made to a woman (Luke 1:26-38) should have been a clue to the male disciples that the annunciation of his resurrection would also be given to women. And yet they don’t believe them.

In the second story (Luke 24:13-35), Jesus walks along with two of his followers on the road to Emmaus, his identity unbeknownst to them. This time Jesus reveals himself to two peripheral disciples, Cleopas and an unnamed companioned, who were not counted among Jesus’s eleven closest followers. At first the two fail to recognize him, even as Jesus interprets the scriptures for them—unlike the women at the tomb who had understood right away (Luke 24:8). Yet when they invite Jesus to dinner and he breaks bread for them, they open their eyes and recognize him (24:31). They immediately rush home to tell the apostles.

Yet the Eleven don’t believe them either.

The Bodily Witness of Jesus

This week’s lectionary passage (Luke 24:36-48) begins just as Cleopas and his companion finish telling the Eleven about their encounter with Jesus on the road. The text tells us that “While they were talking about this,” Jesus himself appeared among them (24:36). Yet despite having heard the women’s story of the tomb and Cleopas’ story of the road to Emmaus, the Eleven cannot grasp that it is the resurrected Jesus who stands before them. Terrified, they think they are seeing a ghost. They cannot countenance that the power of life has overcome the dark shadow of death.

Curiously, when Jesus begins to help the Eleven understand what is happening, he doesn’t begin by explaining the scriptures to them, as he had done with the disciples on the road to Emmaus and as the angels had done with the women at the tomb. Instead, he shows them his hands and feet. It is as though he understands that those who have been centered in the power structure cannot grasp an alternative narrative to that the Empire has given them.

By contrast, those on the periphery—the women and unnamed disciples—know already that the imperial narrative is false because it has long failed them and marginalized them. They are ready for an alternative narrative. They are equipped to see life when it emerges in the midst of death. They are freed to see experience the resurrection that now encounters them in the risen Christ.

But for the Eleven, instead of interpreting scripture, Jesus insists that they must encounter his physical body. He instructs them,

Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. (24:39)

In a single verse, Jesus twice instructs the disciples to “see” (Gk eidon), accompanied by “touch” (Gk pselafao) and “observe” (Gk theoreo). These are experiential verbs emphasizing the physical presence of Jesus in their midst.

For the Eleven, grasping the reality of the resurrection Gospel means encountering bodies that have been wounded and broken by the Empire. It means experiencing the world around them not through their own experience of centeredness but through a sensory encounter with one who has suffered from the Empire’s collusion with death. They cannot properly understand their own scriptures until they have encountered one who has been declared an enemy by the State.

Yet, even after touching his body, the Eleven remain in disbelief and wonder (24:41). Recognizing this, Jesus asks for a bite to eat (24:41). The disciples give him a piece of broiled fish, which he eats in front of them. As with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, table fellowship is necessary to recognizing the truth of the Gospel.

It is only at this point that Jesus begins to explain to the Eleven what the women and the peripheral disciples on the road to Emmaus had already understood—that Jesus had fulfilled the scriptures. Jesus explains to them that everything that has happened has already been revealed in “Moses, the prophets, and the psalms” (24:44). Only after experiencing his body and sharing food with him were the minds of the Eleven opened to understand the scriptures.

De-Centering the Resurrection

So too, perhaps, it is for us. Those of us who occupy centers of power often have the most difficulty grasping the possibilities of resurrected life. We have the most difficulty accepting the possibility of a narrative other than Empire’s, which has so thoroughly dominated our imaginations. We struggle to perceive an alternative reality of abundant new life working its way in from the edges of the imperial structure of death.

Yet, as liberation theologians have long told us, God is most easily recognized outside official systems of power. Resurrection is at work among those at the periphery long before it is recognized by those of us in the center. Only those who have experienced the failure of the imperial narrative are prepared to accept an alternative Gospel of resurrection. Only those who know that the Empire functions by the logic of death can bear witness to the God who brings forth new life.

For those of us who find ourselves at the center of power structures—because of the way the Empire values our bodies, our gender expressions, our citizenship, our academic credentialing—this text comes as both warning and invitation. It warns us against overconfidence in our own perception of things, for we, like the Eleven, may have the most difficulty grasping the good news of the Gospel. The more we sit comfortably in our centeredness, the less we understand.

Yet this text is also an invitation. It is an invitation to listen to the words of those who have been to the tomb. We can believe their testimonies rather than dismissing them as idle tales. It is an invitation to acknowledge the bodily witness of those who have borne the brunt of the Empire’s deathly violence. It is an encouragement to break bread with fellow travelers along the road, lest they open our eyes to realities we have not yet understood.

Only then can we return to the scriptures. Only then can we see the power of the resurrection at work transforming the world.