Offering the Daily Sacrifice

Origen, in his commentary on John's gospel, gives notes pertaining to the baptizer's statement, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"  As part of the thought, Origen pursues the significance of the lamb among the acceptable altar offerings in Leviticus.

Now we find the lamb offered in the continual (daily) sacrifice.  Thus it is written, "Now this is what you shall offer on the altar: two lambs a year old day by day regularly.   One lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight.  And with the first lamb a tenth seah of fine flour mingled with a fourth of a hin of beaten oil, and a fourth of a hin of wine for a drink offering.  The other lamb you shall offer at twilight, and shall offer with it a grain offering and its drink offering, as in the morning, for a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the Lord.  It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, to speak to you there.  There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory.  I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar."  But what other continual sacrifice can there be to the man of reason in the world of mind, but the Word growing to maturity, the Word who is symbolically called a lamb and who is offered as soon as the soul receives illumination.  This would be the continual sacrifice of the morning, and it is offered again when the sojourn of the mind with divine things comes to an end.  For it cannot maintain for ever its intercourse with higher things, seeing that the soul is appointed to be yoked together with the body which is of earth and heavy.

But if any one asks what the saint is to do in the time between morning and evening, let him follow what takes place in the cultus and infer from it the principle he asks for.  In that case the priests begin their offerings with the continual sacrifice, and before they come to the continuous one of the evening they offer the other sacrifices which the law prescribes, as, for example, that for transgression, or that for involuntary offences, or that connected with a prayer for salvation, or that of jealousy, or that of the Sabbath, or of the new moon, and so on, which it would take too long to mention.  So we, beginning our oblation with the discourse of that type which is Christ, can go on to discourse about many other most useful things.  And drawing to a close still in the things of Christ, we come, as it were, to evening and night, when we arrive at the bodily features of His manifestation.

(Book VI, cap. 33-34)

Origen's point is clear.  The believer as priest begins and ends with Christ each day in a continual fashion, being diligent not to slack in the faithful endurance with which we start.