Opening Prayer
Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread that gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP 219)
TEXT
John 3:13-21 NJB
No one has gone up to heaven
except the one
who came down from heaven,
the Son of man;
as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert,
so must the Son of man be lifted up
so that everyone who believes
may have eternal life in him.
For this is how God loved the world:
he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him
may not perish
but may have eternal life.
For God sent his Son into the world
not to judge the world,
but so that through him
the world might be saved.
No one who believes in him
will be judged;
but whoever does not believe
is judged already,
because that person does not believe
in the Name of God’s only Son.
And the judgement is this:
though the light has come into the world
people have preferred
darkness to the light
because their deeds were evil.
And indeed, everybody who does wrong
hates the light and avoids it,
to prevent his actions
from being shown up;
but whoever does the truth
comes out into the light,
so that what he is doing
may plainly appear as done in God.’
John 6:32-33 NJB
In all truth I tell you,
it was not Moses
who gave you the bread from heaven,
it is my Father
who gives you the bread from heaven,
the true bread;
for the bread of God
is the bread
which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.