"My Sabbath"

From Michael Bird, Jesus the Eternal Son.

Later, in one of the conflict stories concerning Jesus and the Sabbath, Jesus responds to his Pharisaic opponents that flouting their halakhah is justified because the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28). This logion could be saying no more than the Sabbath’s purpose in helping humanity (v. 27) implies humanity’s authority over the Sabbath (playing on the sense of “Son of Man” as a Semitic idiom for “human being”).

Alternatively, in light of the conflict described in Mark 2:23–28, it might imply that the Son of Man holds a special authority over the Sabbath and therefore can define its purpose and proper application. In favor of the latter view, we can say a few things:

(1) It would be exceedingly odd for Jesus or Mark to think that human beings in general, even if restricted to Israel, possesses authority to decide for themselves under what circumstances they may override the Sabbath command. Rights to abrogate the Sabbath are particularly affronting when one remembers that the Scriptures attribute such an authority to Yahweh as the one who instituted and consecrated the day of rest (see Exod 16:22–30; 20:10–11; 31:15–17; Lev 23:1–11; Deut 5:12–15), which is why Yahweh calls it “my Sabbath” (Exod 31:13; Lev 19:3, 30; Ezek 20:12–13).

(2) If we compare Mark 2:23–28 with 2:1–10, then we see an emerging pattern in these conflict stories where Jesus’s provocative action ends with an emphatic statement about Jesus’s own particular authority (2:10 and 2:28) that justifies his controversial behavior.

(3) The parallel texts in Matthew and Luke are even more unequivocal that Jesus’s authority over the Sabbath is not a general human authority. Rather, it is uniquely his authority as the Son of Man that is stressed (Matt 12:6; Luke 6:5).

We might paraphrase the Markan Jesus’s reasoning:

“You forget that the Sabbath was instituted to meet a human need so human needs may override sabbatarian restrictions. I declare this as no meagre opinion nor as a mere beneficiary of the Sabbath’s command to rest, but as one who is the Lord of the Sabbath, so I may legitimately pronounce when it is appropriate to suspend its requirements.”

If this is the case, as Gundry observes: “A Christological point has grown out of an anthropological one, and outgrown it.”

If Jesus carries authority over the most sacred and holy of divinely created institutions, then, as France puts it: “The christological stakes could hardly be pitched higher than this.” [France, Mark, 145, 148.]