What a Study of Mark's Gospel can Tell Christians of Different Denominations about the Meaning and Importance of the Sabbath
‘Keep the Sabbath holy’, was the forth commandment read by Moses from
the stone tablets. Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead on
a Sunday so for them that is there Sabbath that means that, to them,
that one-day in the week is holy and to keep it this way they must
rest and avoid any form of work at all costs. Jewish people, although
they too believe in the Sabbath, worship it on a different day. This
is because they believe god created the world in six days, and on the
seventh day, he rested. Therefore it is important to them to worship
the Sabbath on a Saturday.
The Sabbath for both religions is defined as a day of rest where no
work must be done and is also a day of worship.
Pharisees were devoted to keeping the Sabbath. They not only enforced
this but also came up with many new rules around what was allowed on
this day. For example the disciples were picking corn when out with
Jesus one Sabbath day (Mark 2:23-28)
And by the Pharisees rules this was not allowed. However Jesus did not
agree with this and thought it wasn’t right that the Pharisees should
have such power, especially over himself. One Sabbath day Jesus was
asked to heal a man with a withered hand (Mark 15:42-47) he performed
this action without question although it was quite obvious that this
wasn’t allowed. When questioned on this matter Jesus replied,’ The
Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’ He meant by this
that god did not create the Sabbath to do harm to us he created it for
the benefit of us and so the rules the Pharisees created were often
not applicable. This shows Jesus had power over the Pharisees.
Although a big part of the catholic and Christian religions are based
around Jesus’ teachings he himself was a Jew. This was because the