In the book of Exodus, Yahweh liberates the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt,

and he brings them to Mount Sinai to establish an intimate relationship with them.

Israel will be his people, and he will be their God.

This is a marriage, and the marriage vows are what we call

the Ten Commandments. Now, most of these commands make sense to us on face value. In fact, they make

sense to any culture. Don't murder, don't lie, honor your parents. But today we'll look at the

fourth command, which was utterly unique to Israel, how they set apart one day every week and treated it

as different. Remember the day of Shabbat to treat it as holy. Six days you will labor and

you will make all of your work, but the seventh day is a Shabbat of Yahweh your Elohim.

The command goes on to say to stop work on the seventh day because in six days Yahweh made the skies and the land, the sea, and all that is in them.

And he rested on the seventh day.

So the reason for this command is cosmic.

It's connected to the story of God creating

and bringing order to everything. The seven-day creation narrative is clearly being hyperlinked here.

God generates out of generous love, something that is wholly contained within and sustained by God.

But that thing needs to then go on a journey of sharing in God's own rest to

become one with God. On days one through six of the creation narrative, the narrator repeats the line

and there was evening and morning on that day. But jarringly, the seventh day doesn't end with

this phrase, implying that we're still in the seventh day.

And the moment of ultimate completion and rest for the cosmos is yet to come.

The Genesis 1 narrative is trying to teach us to think about all of history as being on this journey

of we're laboring towards this great day of unity and rest and completeness and blessing

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