Worship And Sunday

He says 'The Sabbath is made for the good of human beings; they are not made for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.' He means that human beings do not exist on Earth solely for the Sabbath day, that the Sabbath was created for the humans. The religious leaders seemed to feel that the Sabbath rules should definitely come before human need, a totally different opinion to the ideas that were taught by Jesus.

The third occasion when Jesus obviously broke the laws of the Sabbath was the case of the man with the paralysed hand. Jesus was teaching in the synagogue, with people watching who wanted to accuse him of doing wrong so they had a reason to convict him. Jesus called the man up to the front, and said 'what does our law allow us to do on the Sabbath? To help or to harm? To save someone's life or destroy it?' They said nothing, so Jesus asked the man to stretch out his hand, and healed it, although he was fully aware of the disapproval from the Pharisees about him breaking the laws of the Sabbath.

Mark uses this story to show how the Pharisees were not willing to regard what Jesus says, he has explained why he does what he does and breaks the laws of the Sabbath, but they are not willing to listen and plan to kill him anyway. The Pharisees and the Herodians, who are sworn enemies, meet togethe ...