What message/code is given to the world so it may trust the news of the resurrection?

Many of you may have seen the movie "Ghosts". In one of the great trivia questions that come from that, the Molly, played by Demi Moore asks "the medium' for a sign, a word that will let her know it is okay to trust that her dead boyfriend is actually speaking to him through the medium. (played by Whoopi Goldberg) She asks for a secret code word that will make the message believable. Anyone know? "Ditto" (the reason: She'd say: "I love you." His response was: "Ditto"...) Then she trusted the message of the medium.

Of all the 'code phrases' that the angel could have used in Matthew's gospel to make his message believable to them - we are given perhaps the strangest one. Because you know that the disciples are going to ask/ no grill the women about what they saw. How do you know it is true? What did he say to you so that we can believe it? And the answer is: "Tell my brothers that they are to go to Galilee, where they will see me." Why Galilee? Why not Jerusalem. Or the temple. Or the Mount of Olives. Or any other of the famous landmarks. Instead - go to Galilee. And like the word: 'Ditto' in Ghosts, it is enough. So what is it about "Galilee" in Matthew's gospel that is so important? And what does it teach us about our Easter journey?

Matthew tells us that when the Holy Family returned from Egypt, Joseph thought to settle in Bethlehem, but was warned in a dream - so instead, they settle in the region of Galilee. When Jesus begins his public life, he leaves Galilee to seek out John to be baptized. He returns to Galilee after John has been arrested. Along the shore of the sea of Galilee he called the first four disciples. It was there that he did his first preaching and teaching and miracles, it was from there that everything began. At the place where it all began, the resurrected Jesus wants to meet with his disciples. At the place where it all began, it all begins again... There, in Galilee, he will commission them to 'go to all nations and preach the good news, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit.

That's why Galilee makes sense to them as a code word. It is the place where it all began. They'd remember. They'd remember the excitement, the memories. They'd remember the message and the miracles. They'd remember the astounding things he had done there- where it all began. Where it all began, it can all begin again. That's the message. That's the code. In the place where faith and wonder and awe took root, one can begin anew. In the place where the heart was open enough to the message before, it can be open again. In a resurrection moment, where it began becomes where it begins again.

That was a part of my experience on Holy Thursday morning, at the Chrism mass, greeted by those folks holding placards that said: "Thanks for being a priest." When I walked down the aisle again where it all began - and I knew it was beginning anew -this walk of discipleship called priesthood. In that resurrection moment, I knew it was beginning again.

Tonight, you and I are invited to go back to where it all began - so that it can all begin anew - to the font of baptism. Jessica Copeland will go there for the first time. At that place, where our lives of faith began, they begin anew. You will be asked, as she will be asked, to renounce the old life of sin and to walk in the newness of the resurrection. To be plunged, as St. Paul writes, into the dying and rising of Jesus. That's the message of the Angel - and the message of Jesus. Where it all began, it all begins again. It is such good news, for a world weary of scandals and violence and suicide bombers. For a world that is rocked by starvation and plagues and suffering - it begins anew.

Demi Moore asked for and was given a secret code word that allowed her to believe: Ditto. The disciples were given a message that allowed them to believe: Go to Galilee. Guess what. Tonight, the world is given the only sign it needs to come to resurrection truth - a people who have gone back to the place where it all began - our baptism - so we can begin anew. You and I - our witness and our lives are the code word. And that's challenging, but amazing news. For where it began, it begins anew...