Sanctioned Waste: The Sabbath. Love and Waste

Exodus 20:8-11.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
¹⁴ then you will find your joy in the LORD,
and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
The mouth of the LORD has spoken. Isaiah 58.

The more I think about it, the more I am amazed by the munificence of this command–one day out of 7 to just rest, to “waste.”

One scriptural way God’s people traditionally showed their love for him was by waste. Wasting one day in 7 to worship him. Wasting grain and birds and lambs and first fruits by burning them in honour of him. Pouring precious nard on his feet. Wasting their livelihood in sustaining Jesus and his disciples.

Love entails “waste”–laying down one’s life in spending time with, serving, listening to, loving, the object of your love.

God help us to waste one day in seven, by keeping it holy, consecrated, set apart for him.