Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (Three Year Lectionary—Series B) (Proper 13B)

Exodus 16:2–15
Psalm 145:10-21
Ephesians 4:1–16
John 6:22–35

Jesus Is the True and Living Bread from Heaven

Having rescued Israel “out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 16:6), the Lord manifested His glory and made Himself known to His people. He fed them with “meat to eat” in the evening and with “bread from heaven” in the morning (Ex. 16:4, 8, 12). But now, the “true bread from heaven,” which the Father gives to you, is the Son, “who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:32–33). Whoever comes to Him “shall not hunger,” and whoever believes in Him “shall never thirst.” He is “the bread of life,” who gives Himself to you as “the food that endures to eternal life” (John 6:27, 35). By the gracious working of God, you believe in Him by the calling of one Spirit through the Gospel, so that you also have “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Eph. 4:4–6). As you eat His one body in the Holy Supper, so you belong to the one Body of His Church, in which you “are to grow up in every way into him who is the head” (Eph. 4:15).