Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-48, 58-66
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

It was 2am and Cheryl was wide awake, huddling over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. The coffee was cold by now, and she had long since stopped drinking it. It was really just something to hold onto.

For most people, it’s the Christmas holiday season that’s rough. But, for Cheryl, it was the Fourth of July. Not so much the flags that go up all over town, or the parade down Main Street. She actually loved seeing the kids from the high school band march along, looking so sharp and disciplined, their brass gleaming in the sun.

Actually, it was the fireworks that got her… the glittery red, green, and purple explosions, the lovely golden tails floating slowly down before the dramatic finales with the repeated BOOM, BOOM, BOOM echoing in her chest. She wondered why she even went to see them at all now.

People said that this year’s show was better than it usually was, but for Cheryl, it was a reminder of yet another year without Tim.

She couldn’t believe it had already been nine years now that the doctor said that awful word. Cancer. It all happened so quickly. One day, there was a lump in his throat and before she knew it, he was gone.

Nine years ago. Seems like just yesterday.

They had been so young that first summer together when they laid out the blanket and stretched out next to each other to watch the fireworks.

It was the summer after their first year of college. It had been a rough fall semester for her… leaving her small town and heading to the state university, with more students in her Biology 101 lecture hall than the entire graduating class from her high school. But, she hung in there and by the time spring semester rolled around, she was starting to get the hang of things.

And then came Tim. Cheryl was sitting by the fountain outside the gymnasium with her friend, Jenny. They were waiting for their rides home for spring break when he walked by. Cheryl had never seen him before, but Jenny knew him from a class, and she introduced them.

And that was pretty much it.

All of their college friends were trying to find themselves – exploring drugs and free love and Eastern philosophy. But, Cheryl and Tim didn’t want all that. They were simple people and their courtship was perfectly simple… like Isaac and Rebecca. She was ready, and he loved her.

He proposed to her the night she had finished her last final that spring semester, and they were married the weekend before classes started up again in the fall.

That summer was a whirl of planning… invitations, choosing a wedding dress, all the last-minute details. Things were simpler then, but still, between the wedding plans and her job in the department store, the summer flew by in a blur.

Except for that one, perfect night. Tim got off early from the gas station and drove four hours without stopping to see her. He got there as the sun was setting, just in time for the fireworks. They lay there… perfectly silent. Perfectly still. Staring up at those beautiful flashes in the sky. Every once in a while she glanced over at his face, lit up by the fireworks. This was the one she would spend her life with. She smiled.

For some reason, in that moment, she remembered writing an essay in 8th grade English class about the 4th of July… about independence… about freedom. She somehow felt freer in that moment lying next to Tim than she ever had in her life.

Curious thing, this freedom, Cheryl pondered, years later. It’s strange how we feel the most free when we are bonded to another. Somehow, we feel the most free when we allow ourselves to be formed, inconvenienced, even limited by another. To have someone lean on you… to have someone to lean on… that’s freedom, she thought.

Since Tim died, Cheryl was used to missing him, but the truth is, she needed him on that dark, humid night. She really did.

Robby, their son hadn’t come home yet. It’s not like he wasn’t old enough to be out that late. He’s 21, for Pete’s sake. God only knows how many late nights out he had at college before he quit and came home.

It’s just common courtesy, she said out loud. The common courtesy that people living under the same roof let each other know their plans. Who could blame her for worrying? Who could blame her for being upset with him?

No one who knew Robby would have blamed her. Other parents, friends at church, teachers… everyone in town knew about Robby.

He was such a lovely boy when he was young… so happy… so smart. He was so quick to raise his hand in school. He used to make sculptures out of anything he could find… bird feathers, gum wrappers, bottle caps. They were amazingly beautiful. On Sundays, he’d climb under the pews and pop up to wave at people in the surrounding rows. Cheryl was petrified, but the others in church would just smile and wave and gently re-route him back to her.

When Robby was young, Cheryl understood - without a doubt - what Jesus said in the scriptures about children... that the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these… that God reveals the important things to the little ones. Young Robby was so pure… so open… so free. Truly free.

Then, it all changed when Tim died.

First, he was just, plain quiet. As he got into his teens, he started dressing in black. Then came the piercings and the graffiti and the God-knows what drugs he tried. The kids he hung out with didn’t help. Kids just weren’t the same as when she was a teenager. Oh, this generation, Cheryl shook her head.

In high school, he was able to get by without trying. But, college was another story. No one really thought he’d last there. He stayed long enough to start wearing T-shirts with red anarchy symbols on them and to argue with her about how the system just keeps us all down. She didn’t even know what that meant.

Earlier that day, when she asked him to come with her to watch the fireworks, he said, “Independence day is a joke. It’s just a farce to keep the workers in their place. You people don’t know anything about freedom.” And he was off. Again.

What had become of her beautiful, little boy? It was bad enough that Tim had to die, but did she have to lose her baby, too?

Cheryl pulled the bible out of the drawer and placed it on the counter. She found the dog-eared fold that marked the verse she’d opened again and again these past, nine years:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

She knew it was supposed to give her comfort, but usually it just made her realize how weary – how tired she was.

Until now. But, somehow, in that moment, she found herself thinking about that summer that Robby went to church camp. Was he 14 or 15? She couldn’t remember exactly. What she did remember was how he did everything he could not to go, but when she went to pick him up, he didn’t want to leave. He introduced her to all the boys in his cabin, especially to his counselor, Larry, a college student with long hair and a warm smile. Speaking of smiles, when Cheryl finally pried Robby away from all the goodbye hugs, he smiled the whole way home. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him smile.

The next day, he cracked open his piggy bank - all that allowance and birthday money he’d been saving - and went out and bought an acoustic guitar at the pawn shop – just like Larry’s, he said. He spent the next month holed up in his bedroom learning the chords to a song. Just one song. He played it over and over… singing along, his voice often breaking and cracking like boys his age do. He never sang it in public, but Cheryl could hear it through the heat vents. And, every once in a while she’d creep up the stairs and stand outside is door, listening. It was beautiful.

Eventually, summer ended and he was back at school. The smile faded. The guitar gathered dust on its stand. He never played it again.

But that night, when the gunpowder still lingered in the air... when the local newspaper was cranking out the annual 4th of July edition with tributes to the military and editorials on the true meaning of freedom... Cheryl remembered the song Robby would sing.

All who are thirsty, All who are weak
Come to the fountain, dip your heart in the stream of life
Let the pain and the sorrow, be washed away
In the waves of his mercy, as deep cries out to deep (we sing)

CHORUS 1:
Come Lord Je - sus come (3x)
As deep cries out to deep (2x)

CHORUS 2:
Holy Spirit come (3x)
As deep cries out to deep (2x)