And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27-28)
While the Sabbath Day rest became a major focus of legalistic and Pharisaical believers, the Sabbath has a spiritual meaning which goes beyond simply obeying a set of rules on what not to do in order to keep it holy. Origen of Alexandria explored some of the possible spiritual meanings of the Sabbath. Christ’s declaring Himself the Lord of the Sabbath means Christ rules even over all the laws people have declared about the Sabbath, and Christ is clear the Sabbath cannot be used as an excuse not to do good deeds or charity: “So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath” (Matthew 12:12).
The rules must submit to the Ruler, not the other way around. It is Christ who defines what keeping the Sabbath rest means. And Jesus interpreted the Sabbath to mean people should be given rest from their suffering: “And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?” (Luke 13:16)
There is the Sabbath that one observes by being at rest from immorality and worldly cares, which applies equally to Christian, Jew, and pagan, and equally to any day of the week. On a still higher plane, the truly spiritual Sabbath allows the individual to experience a personal reunion with God in a way that transfers the idea of observance to the scope of eternity. Ultimately, there is the eschatological Sabbath, that heavenly rest to follow the completion of this world, a hope common to rabbinic literature and the New Testament. In this context, Origen interprets the sabbath law as a promise of the ultimate spiritual communion of all rational creation. (Charles Kannegiesser, ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA: HIS WORLD AND HIS LEGACY, p 131)
To enter into God’s rest, Sabbath, is to experience communion with the Creator.
So then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God; for whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, that no one fall by the same sort of disobedience. (Hebrews 4:9-11)
Fraternized 