Hi, my name is Kate and I had the privilege of knowing Jude. God put some words on my heart that I’d be honored to share with you.

Jude’s favorite character was Sonic the Hedgehog. Because Sonic is awesome and Jude could recognize awesomeness. Who here is familiar with the Sonic the Hedgehog movies? I’m a big fan and I know Jude was too.

The Sonic movies are one of the truly rare franchises, like the Godfather,  Cars and arguably Top Gun, in which the sequel is superior to the original. Sonic 3 is, in the words of my daughter Lucy, a cinematic masterpiece.

Jude and the character of Sonic are parallels. They’re both super sporty, fast, always moving, funny and able to win you over with one quirky smile. In the third movie we are introduced to Super Sonic, which is when sonic has a surge of power and literally lights up, and goes from super speed to light speed. Jude was like super sonic because he brought light wherever he went. He brightened everyone’s day and left a trail of light behind him.

Now in the third movie we are introduced to Shadow the Hedgehog. In order to make my point I need to tell you a little bit of plot development but no major spoilers. So Shadow shows up and we think, oh another hedgehog, great, he’ll be on Sonic’s side, right??…WRONG. Shadow is actually working for the bad guy, Dr. Eggman in his quest to end the world.

But why? Why is Shadow working against Sonic?

Now this is a theme we see over and over again in movies, and it mimics real life. The idea of Light vs. Dark or Good Vs. Evil.

Now I believe in God, as did Jude. I believe all goodness and love flow from God down to us.

I believe God is the source of all light and love in the world. But if you don’t believe that, you can still track with me, with the idea of good vs. evil or light verses darkness.

So why did Shadow go to the dark side, why was he fighting the light of goodness?

Well we see in Shadow’s backstory that when he was young, his best friend died. And when that happened Shadow was heartbroken, just like we are now. And because of that pain he chose to block out the light. He chose to seek darkness. He was so sad that he never wanted to be happy again. Happiness almost felt like a betrayal to his friend’s memory. So he became his name, he became shadow - a place where no light exists. He stopped smiling, he stopped laughing, he stopped living his life.

I tell you this story because all of us here today can relate to that impulse. We are sad. We are heartbroken. There is a part of us that wants to turn from the light. We want to hide in shadow and stop trying. We don’t want to laugh again. We don’t want to have fun again. Those things feel like a betrayal to the pain we are in and the love we have for Jude.

But that is not what Jude stood for. Jude stood for light and fun and goofiness and adventure. If we turn from those things, we are not honoring his memory, we are honoring the darkness.

I can see Jude looking down on us and cocking his head to the side like he did when he was thinking and scrunching up his eyes. Like he did when he was going to ask a question and asking “Why are you living in shadow? Don’t you know the light is better?”

I want to challenge everyone in here to fight the urge to become a shadow version of yourself because of this great loss. Instead we have to become like Jude was, like Super Sonic, we have to run to the light. We have to have adventures and embrace friendship and goofiness We have to run to goodness and love and Life, and God. Because that’s how Jude lived his life and that’s what he would want us to do.

The world doesn’t need more shadow, it needs more light. The world lost a bright light when it lost Jude, and it might take all of us working together to shine as bright as Jude did.

Will you join me in honoring Jude by running with Super Speed towards adventure, towards friendship, towards goofiness, towards light and most importantly towards God?