You no doubt remember the scene in Star Wars: A New Hope in which, after the Millennium Falcon gets caught in the Death Star’s tractor beam and brought aboard, Luke and Han go off to rescue Leia while Obi-Wan disables the beam. But on his way back, Obi-Wan encounters Vader; and the two, dueling it out with lightsabers, battle their way to the bay where the Falcon sits under guard. Just as they reach the bay, Obi-Wan catches sight of Luke.
Inexplicably, Obi-Wan ceases to fight, raises his lightsaber in a salute, and with a final glance towards Luke to make sure Luke’s watching, he deactivates the saber. Instantly, Vader strikes the fatal blow—only to watch in astonishment as Obi-Wan dematerializes, his Jedi robe falling empty to the floor.
It seems like self-sacrifice, a diversion to give Luke and Leia, Han and Chewy, Artoo and 3CPO a chance to escape. It is. But it’s also and—more importantly—a show.
“Handle Me”
The same evening that Jesus sits at meat with Cleopas and the unnamed disciple in Emmaus and then vanishes out of their sight, the other disciples are back in Jerusalem hiding out, cowering. Out of nowhere, the Gospel of John tells us,
when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst.
John 20:19
Jesus materializes. Out of nowhere.
They were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a ghost. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? … Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a ghost hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
Luke 24:37-39
The disciples still aren’t convinced. And Jesus
said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them.
Luke 24:41-43
—as they watch in astonishment.
Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.
John 20:20
Because they see—Jesus shows them, puts on a show to show them—he’s not a ghost, but real, alive, flesh and blood.
“Thrust in Thy Hand”
The Disciple Thomas, however, isn’t there that evening, and when the other disciples later tell him they’ve seen Jesus alive, he’s incredulous.
Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe glad, when they saw the Lord.
John 20:25
Eight days later, it’s the same scene, the disciples are gathered, still cowering, except this time Thomas is with them, and
then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst.
John 20:26
Jesus materializes again. And he says to Thomas,
Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into
my side doors being shut, and stood in the midst.
John 20:27
Caravaggio’s take is pretty graphic:
And rightly so. It’s a forensic examination. It’s an autopsy on a living corpse.
What Jesus is doing is crashing the disciples’, Thomas’s notion of the whole nature of reality. He himself is making it as graphic as possible because—
Meat
Jesus is using The Matrix’s most powerful illusion, the solidity of this meat—his meat, Thomas’s meat, my meat, your meat—to crash the whole reality of The Matrix.
But it’s much more than even that.
Luke’s Realization
The last thing Obi-Wan does before his Jedi robe falls empty, remember, is to make sure Luke is watching. He is, as I’ve said, putting on a show:
First, with a little Jedi jujitsu he flips Vader’s big fat bully worldview on its big fat bum. You can’t kill me, he shows Vader. I’m not this meat. This meat isn’t even real.
But more importantly Obi-Wan is showing Luke not what he—Obi-Wan—can do. Vanish—poof! ta-da! Nope, Obi-Wan is showing Luke what he—Luke himself—is. The not-meat.
And indeed in The Last Jedi, at the very end Luke literally realizes that reality—makes real the reality that he’s not this meat—whereupon his Jedi robe wafts empty into the air.
Hack the Eucharist | Crash the Matrix 
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