This sixth Sunday of Easter could easily be called, "vision Sunday." As a parish we meet after today's service for the second of our "Visioning 2020″ meetings to hear your visions of what St. Thomas' Parish will look like in the future. And as if to mark the significance of all such visioning processes, our lessons tell us of three times when the followers of Jesus are given visions that are to guide their understandings, actions, and imaginations as they dare become believers and followers of the Risen Christ. There is much to learn from these visions from the earliest days of the church that might help us be more faithful as we work to envision God's desires for this community.

Of the three visions in today's lessons, John's was the most startling, a vivid picture of the in breaking of the Kingdom of God as "the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God" - a city that in John's words "has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light," and Jesus, the paschal or Passover lamb, is its lamp. This vision of John during the Easter Season, is symbolized by the light of the Paschal Candle - lit from the Easter vigil fire - it burns in front of us during worship, a symbol of the eternal light of Christ that will never be extinguished.

Then in today's Gospel lesson, Jesus himself promises his followers that although he has tried already to explain God's kingdom while he was with them, that once Jesus was no longer with them "the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you." Our Easter Season ends in two weeks, with the Feast of Pentecost, celebrating the birth of the Church with the coming of just this Holy Spirit into the midst of Jesus' followers after his death, which we reclaim each week in the third stanza of the Nicene Creed.  

The third vision in today's lessons may appear the least dramatic. Yet like menacing music that precedes a cinematic surprise, Luke's words at the start of the lesson from Acts are intended to forewarn us of something significant on the horizon. "During the night, Paul had a vision". Just that. Then, Luke launches into a geography lesson, full of names that would tempt any lector to phone in a sudden emergency absence. Paul's vision begins in the city of Troas on the west coast of Asia Minor. There Paul, Silas, and Timothy, have been joined by the narrator of the story, Luke, who continues the story in the first person plural, "we." With an economy of words that would have been the envy of the writer of Mark, Luke says that "during the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.' When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them."