Sabbath = God’s law required that the Sabbath be kept free from worldly pursuits and centered on God. Ex 20:10, 23:12, Jer 17:21-22, Neh 13:15 The penalty for disobedience of this command was death by stoning. Num 15:32-36

Ex 20:10  but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.

Jewish tradition had added to the command in the attempt to exactly define “work.”  Note the following references to carrying burdens:

“carrying out and bringing in any thing, from one place to another, is said to be work, and one of the principal works;” (Maimon. Hilchot Sabbat, c. 12. sect. 6.)

“whoever carries any thing out (i.e. on the sabbath day), whether in his right hand, or in his left, in his bosom, or “on his shoulder,” is guilty; for so carried the Kohathites.” (Misn. Sabbat, c. 10. sect. 3.)

“he that rolls up a bed of the brasiers or tinkers (i.e. on the sabbath day) is bound to a sin offering.” (T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 47. 1. & 138. 1.)

They also said that “on the Sabbath a nailed shoe could not be worn; it was a burden; but an un-nailed shoe could be worn; that a person could go with two shoes on, but not with only one; and that one man could carry a loaf of bread, but that two men could not carry it between them.” (qt’d by Johnson)

In their efforts to exactly define work on the Sabbath, the Jews had 2 full tractates of the Mishnah (oral traditions later written down) devoted to this subject.  They began in an effort to keep the day from becoming secularized as just another day of business, but many of the new laws were quite ridiculous:

“(On the Sabbath) a man may borrow of his fellows jars of wine or jars of oil, provided that he does not say to him, ‘Lend me them’” (Shab. 23:1)  This would be a transaction which would imply writing, which would be work.

A man could not put vinegar on his teeth to alleviate pain from toothache, but it was perfectly legal to take vinegar with his food and the Rabbis concluded that “if he is healed he is healed” (Shab. 14:4).

It was illegal for a woman to gaze into a mirror on the Sabbath, for if she saw a white hair she would remove it and that would be work!

Jesus ordered the man to pick up his mat and carry it.  Was Jesus a law-breaker?  Matt 5:17  It seems that there was a great gulf between the view of the Jewish leaders and that of Jesus as to the purpose of the Sabbath!  What did the Jews view as the purpose of the Sabbath?  What did Jesus see as its purpose?  Mark 2:27

Matt 5:17  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.

Mark 2:27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

God instituted the Sabbath to give us rest, which He knows that we need because He made us this way. Our bodies need to be rested and refreshed every seventh day. Ex 23:12

Ex 23:12 “Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the slave born in your household, and the alien as well, may be refreshed.

But we need spiritual refreshing as much as we need physical refreshing. Note in Exodus 20:10 and elsewhere that the Sabbath is a Sabbath “to the Lord.” F. W. Robertson says it this way: “I am more and more sure by experience that the reason for the observance of the Sabbath lies deep in the everlasting necessities of human nature, and that as long as man is man the blessedness of keeping it, not as a day of rest only, but as a day of spiritual rest, will never be annulled. I certainly do feel by experience the eternal obligation, because of the eternal necessity, of the Sabbath. The soul withers without it. It thrives in proportion to its observance. The Sabbath was made for man. God made it for men in a certain spiritual state because they needed it. The need, therefore, is deeply hidden in human nature. He who can dispense with it must be holy and spiritual indeed. And he who, still unholy and unspiritual, would yet dispense with it is a man that would fain be wiser than his Maker.”