Jesus speaks to my rationale in choosing this name when he responds to certain Pharisees in the second chapter of Mark. The disciples are accused of sinning because they had picked some heads of grain while walking through a field during one particular Sabbath day. Jesus responds to the religious criticism by saying, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." He caps the statement by then adding, "So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
Religious discussion has historically revolved around man's devotion to God. What we can, as human beings, do to impress this divine entity. What we can do to garner his favor or avoid his wrath. The irony of Jesus' statement here is the redefinition of God's imperative. The most holy admonition to the Jew, the keeping of the Sabbath, is characterized not by what the observance does to or for God, but rather why the admonition was given by God to man in the first place. The observance essentially does nothing for God. It doesn't make God feel more powerful or relaxed to know that man has taken a day to rest from his labor. The Sabbath, like most other of God's commandments, is given by God to man for the benefit of man and not for His own sense of fulfillment.
Like a parent forcing a child to take castor oil for his own good, the admonition to Sabbath rest, as well as many other commandments, represents an ideal promoted by God to counteract man's inherently self-destructive, materialistic obsessions. It forces man to stop and recognize the importance that God places on his/her personal health and welfare. In the field of agriculture, even a field needs to be given time to rest in-between harvesting seasons so that it can replenish itself with the nutrients necessary to sustain life. Which is what it's all about in the first place; the promotion and sustaining of human life and the premium that God places on its care.
When Jesus then says, "So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath," he is saying that we must realize the supremacy of Christ in all areas of our lives, even those areas of our lives we thought we had a religious handle on. He is admonishing us not to lose ourselves in the act of worship to the exclusion of experiencing and/or surrendering to the very object of our worship, namely, Jesus Christ himself. God's ultimate purpose in your life and mine is that we experience life to the fullest extent possible (John 10:10); a truth we can easily loose on the altar of religious sacrifice.
This blog is dedicated to stimulating edifying and reinforcing conversation centered on God's truth to man, often pointing out the deceptive ideals promoted by our self-centered, secular mindset, or our own often misguided religious dogmas. I hope to present a healthy and balanced perspective of truth from God's point of view.
Organic truth.
I look forward to exchanging some part of my life with a bit of yours.
Luv ya,
Pastor Mario
