The Sabbath Made for Man by the Lord of the Sabbath
And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”
Listen to the "Verse by Verse" episode covering this scripture.
As we saw in discussing Ezekiel 20:23-24 , Judah was taken into captivity because of breaking God’s laws, including profaning God’s Sabbath—treating something that is sacred with irreverence and contempt. Over the centuries after that time, the Jewish religious leaders had built up a wall around the Sabbath in an attempt to keep far away from profaning it. However, these added rules were not God’s rules. By going into the other ditch, they ended up being overly restrictive and not beneficial to people.
In Mark 2:27-28 Jesus Christ powerfully puts the Sabbath back in perspective. He created the Sabbath for our benefit. It is not to be a burden, but a blessing.
Since God “created all things through Jesus Christ” ( Ephesians 3:9 ), the One who became Jesus Christ was the One who rested on the seventh day of creation ( Genesis 2:2-3 ). Thus He is also the “Lord of the Sabbath” and has the right to tell us how to remember and observe it.
For additional study, see “How to Keep the Sabbath Holy.”
