I love the Bible story of the nobleman with the sick son who comes to Jesus (Bible ref. 4 in this week’s lesson). Although he had enough faith to come to Jesus for help, he’s rather tentative, because he asks Jesus to ‘come down’ into the problem with him at his level of thought to help him. Jesus encourages the nobleman to greater faith, effectively saying he doesn’t need to actually see a healing take place. But the nobleman, still feeling the urgency of his child’s problem, asks a second time for Jesus to come down to his level of thought. However, at this point the Christly inspiration must have reached him, as he accepts Jesus’ assurances that the child is already well, and goes home calmly. When his servants tell him the time his son became well, the ‘7th hour’ (7 representing completeness) indicates the time at which he perceived the Christly view of perfection. What an encouraging story for Christmas – that we can all perceive the Christ thought of perfection and Love already present in our life, and that of our family, friends, community and world, replacing the mortal view of whatever seems to be a problem. So grateful for this week’s lesson.