Mark 2:27

The essence to understanding this properly is to understand God’s heart in the commandment.

God has a design in all of creation, and man is no exception. In that design, man needs certain things to function properly, as God intended. While some of these things are evident by existence, others are explicitly stated and commanded in the Holy Scripture; one such thing is proper rest, particularly rest in God: the Sabbath.

So important was this to man’s well being, anyone violating the command in the times of old was to be put to death. To the modern man that seems harsh, but that’s because the modern man is as dense as a brick, thinking such rest unnecessary, and God barbaric. In reality, God was loving and protecting His people.

Nonetheless, those who use religion and its dictates to elevate themselves and become haughty among the people, missed the spirit of the command and fell into man-invented legalism / regulations, taking the command into various excess and error, even while being hypocrites in this self-imposed nonsense, given other things they regularly practiced on the Sabbath. To this, Jesus brings clarity and lets us know: Sabbath was instituted for the well-being of man by God’s love and design, not to make man a slave under it, or to become so legalistic under its observation that one (for example) wouldn’t be willing to do good unto a brother in need because it’s Sabbath.

Therefore: He who does not observe a Sabbath is unwise. And He who becomes a legalistic prig in its observance is also unwise.