This is the burnt offering of every sabbath, beside the continual burnt-offering and his drink-offering. Numbers 28:10
Jewish altars were busy. In addition to special day sacrifices and offerings, there were the morning and evening sacrifices every day. They included spotless lambs along with their meal and drink offerings. But there was one day in which those daily offerings were doubled up; an extra two lambs and their meal and drink offerings were burned on the altar. This happened every sabbath, to mark that day as a very special one. Does it remind you of something that happens one day every week for us Christians?
God’s commandment regarding the sabbath was important in the God-given religion of the ancient Israelites. Its observance was actually listed within the Ten Commandments; there was no way they were to ignore or neglect it. That commandment does not apply to those of us who serve Jesus Christ during this age of grace. But we do have a commandment from our Lord: This do in remembrance of Me. The instructions for the Lord’s Supper are clearly laid out in the Scriptures. And we have the pattern established in the Book of Acts that this ordinance be repeated every first day of the week. This differs from the sabbath offering of the Old Testament which was on the last day of every week. We observe this memorial feast to show the Lord’s death (1 Corinthians 11:26), and we do it on the first day of the week because that is the day on which He rose from death triumphant.
Our weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper is similar to the Jewish sabbath offering in another way: it places an additional emphasis on the sacrifice. Like the daily offerings in Israel, we remember each day the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus to save us. But on the Lord’s Day, the observance of the Lord’s Supper refreshes the focus of our hearts and minds on the death of our Saviour. Because there is nothing more important to us for time and for eternity than the reality of our Salvation, there is nothing more important that we can do each week than to by faith revisit the scene where the Author of our Salvation purchased our redemption by the offering of Himself and the shedding of His precious atoning blood.
No higher honour is available on earth today than that of the humble Christian to draw near in our Lord’s presence to eat His Supper and to remember Him in His own appointed way. – Jim MacIntosh