Lord of Sabbath

Religious leaders from Jerusalem objected to the looseness of Jesus to their Sabbath traditions, but he used the opportunity to demonstrate that the “Son of Man” is “Lord” even over that day. God ceased His creative activities on the seventh day, but its formal establishment as a regulated day on which no work could be done did not occur until the Torah was given at Mount Sinai (“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”).

The Son of David

The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as the “Son of David.” In his life and death, he demonstrated what it meant to be the King of Israel. This last designation was linked traditionally to the House of David; but in Matthew, that understanding of the Messiah is altered in unexpected ways. The Greater “Son of David” is more than the Ruler of Israel or King over the Nations, for he is the Messiah of a radically different kind, the “Servant of Yahweh.”