The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath
“The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath." In fact, the Gospel says even more: He himself is our Sabbath. Let me remind you that another Evangelist begins the event described in today's Gospel with the following words of the Lord Jesus: " Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light. "(Mt 11: 28-30). The Lord Jesus clearly presents himself here as our Sabbath, as our Rest.
To comment on the truth that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, and even more so that He is our Sabbath, we need a very basic knowledge of what the Sabbath was in the Old Testament. Well, the Sabbath, one of the greatest treasures of the Old Testament, had three great religious meanings. According to the first edition of the Decalogue (cf. Ex 20: 8-11), it is to be a day of thanksgiving for God's work of creation. Moreover, it was the Sabbath day of remembrance of the liberation from Egyptian bondage (cf. Dt 5: 12-15). Finally, that day was also a sign of the covenant. This Sabbath significance increased especially when God's people were enslaved and the Temple and sacrifices to God there were absent.
It is very interesting that in the Gospels the Lord Jesus is presented as the fulfillment of the Sabbath in all these three dimensions. First, let us see how the Sabbath is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus as thanksgiving for God's gift of creation. In the New Testament we learn that creation was accomplished through the same Son of God who became man out of love for us. Moreover, He became one of us in order to repair and complete His creation. In one of the Sabbath disputes, the Lord Jesus says something extraordinary: " My Father is at work until now, so I am at work." (cf. Jn. 5:17). In other words, the work of creation is still in progress, I have just come to complete it.
The Lord Jesus completes the Sabbath also in the sense that it was a day of remembrance of deliverance from Egyptian bondage. This thread most clearly appeared in the account of the healing of a Crippled woman. Here is how the Lord Jesus explains why he healed her on the Sabbath: " Hypocrites! Does not each one of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering? " (cf. Luke 13:15 ff.)
Jesus is also the fullest sign of the New Covenant. It was contained in His Blood. It is not only a sign of the New Covenant, but also its source and guarantor: " Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins." (cf. Mt 26:27-28).
This is how the religious content of the Sabbath was mysteriously, unexpectedly and beyond all expectations have been fulfilled!
There are still people like some Pharisees who, above all, wonder what is allowed and what is not. Jesus does not want this question to be most important for us.
He would like us to focus above all on an inner transformation that makes us more and more like Him.
The Spirit of Jesus' teaching was best summed up by St. Augustine in the words: "Love and do what you want." When Love becomes our way of being, there will be no longer any need for the question of what is allowed and what is not.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george