Gaining Spiritual Discernment
Presentation Scripture Readings
When the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord falls on a Sunday, which only happens at most every five years, it interrupts the narrative of the early years of Jesus’s life and ministry and throws us back into the infancy narrative because this feast commemorates Jesus’s presentation in the temple on the fortieth day after his birth. Other years, it falls on a weekday. Did you notice in the gospel reading that Jesus wasn’t much more than a passive observer in this scene? Nothing much happened to him. It was Mary and Joseph who brought him with them to the temple. There, they could offer the sacrifice prescribed in the law that marked the end of their period of ritual impurity after having given birth. According to the Torah, it was also a sacrifice that “redeemed” a first-born male child who, according to the Scriptures, rightfully belonged to God as the first-fruits of the womb. However, Luke makes no mention of it, because, who, after all, could redeem the Redeemer?
As Mary and Joseph came to the temple to present Jesus to the Lord and offer sacrifice, the spotlight isn’t on Jesus. It’s on the others present. In them, the gospel is revealing the gift of spiritual discernment. What does that mean? Throughout the Scriptures, and particularly in the Christian gospels, we find men and women who are closely attuned to the realm of the Spirit. Back when radio was new, it took some effort to tune it so that it could receive a particular frequency of vibrations and resonate with whatever channel the listener selected. Likewise, people with spiritual discernment. They’ve learned to be open to the vibrations of the Spirit of God, and to resonate with them.
What does spiritual discernment look like? We can take four examples from the infancy narratives themselves: the Magi, Simeon, the widow Anna, and John the Baptist. First, there’s the story of the Magi from the East—probably Zoroastrians from Persia. Their spiritual discernment motivated them to look for a sign of the coming of the anointed one among the Israelites. Their discernment opened them to the possibility and allowed them to see and recognize that sign when it came. And it motivated them to go after it. Millions of people must have seen the star, only these Magi recognized and followed it.
Then, in today’s gospel, there is the man, Simeon, living his life in the service of God in the temple. We know only two things about him: one, that he was “righteous and devout,” which means that he was a scrupulous follower of the Torah and its stipulations; and two, that he’d had a revelation, thanks to his unwavering devotion, that he would see God’s anointed before he died. His spiritual single-mindedness allowed him to develop the gift of spiritual discernment to such a degree that he not only understood the revelation that was given him, but he was also capable of recognizing him when the anointed one was brought before him and was placed in his arms.
Next, we have Anna, the prophetess. What is a prophet, after all, but one who reads the signs of the times and uses their spiritual discernment to interpret them. Such discernment begins with the removal of distraction—voluntarily, like Simeon, or involuntarily, like this woman. She had lost her husband after only a very brief marriage and, considering how unusual it was for someone to live into their fifties, let alone their eighties, it’s very possible that she had even outlived her children. It’s amazing how vibrant spiritual discernment can become when all the distractions of life are gone. Her spiritual discernment allowed her to connect with this infant and to become aware of him whose presence she was in, and then to give thanks to God for the privilege.
Finally, consider John the Baptist, someone consecrated to God from his birth and who willingly took on the vocation not only of an ascetic but of one who was powerfully inspired to lead a movement of spiritual reform based on undertaking the radical change of mind and heart that he called repentance. His heart, mind, and soul were oriented toward God without distraction or wavering. As a result, when Jesus, the anointed, came to him, he had what can only be called a theophany. His spiritual discernment opened him to the reality that he-who-was-to-come was standing before him.
In short, spiritual discernment is not magic, nor is it a gift given to some but withheld from the rest of us. It’s a gift available to all, a channel of perception like any other sense—sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, or any of the other subtler senses. As we’ve seen, it requires only two things that all of our four examples exhibited: a freedom from distractions, and a sharp focus on the spiritual. Just as each of our physical sense organs is specialize to receive certain distinctive kinds of vibrations, so, too, our sense of spiritual discernment resonates only with spiritual energy. We tend to ignore and dismiss it in the midst of all the other sensory noise, because what it discerns is indiscernible by any other sense. It’s our unique channel for connecting with the spiritual world.
God permeates our world, and our world is immersed in God if we would only discern it. We are the body of the anointed living in time, whether or not we use our spiritual discernment to become aware of it. We would surely sense this if we only took the time and energy to develop our spiritual discernment like those in our gospels. If we were to free ourselves from distractions and focus on the Spirit, we, too, could pray,
“Now, Master, you may let your servant go
in peace, according to your word,
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and glory for your people Israel.”
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