This sermon was preached for Good Friday on Friday, April 19 at the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Oakland, CA. The readings for this sermon is the Passion Narrative in the Gospel of John ( John 18:1-19:42 ). Last year, a couple of my friends asked me to give a speech at their wedding. As I was preparing my remarks, I asked Alec and Rachel to tell me about when they knew they wanted to marry each other. Rachel wrote to me that while she knew she would marry Alec for a long time, she had been waiting for the moment when she knew she was ready. That moment came just about a year before their wedding, when Alec’s grandmother fell very ill. A couple of days before she died, Alec and Rachel were in the hospital visiting his grandmother. Ella Fitzgerald’s “Cry me a river” was playing and Alec’s grandfather was sitting next to her and holding her hand. That moment was incredibly sad, but it was also beautiful. Suddenly Rachel knew. She wanted that with Alec, all of it—marriage, children,