Hospitality is that wonderful gift of welcoming the stranger. The Bible wants us to know that welcoming a stranger can bring us close to an experience with God. Remember Abraham’s gesture of hospitality in Genesis 18? From the door of his tent, he sees three figures coming toward him in the heat of the day. Abraham runs out to meet them with gestures of welcome, offering rest, water, and food. These ordinary strangers bring a promise that Isaac will be born — a promise beyond Sarah and Abraham’s comprehension.
Jesus’ ministry was dependent on hospitality. He sent out his disciples with these words: “Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave.” (Matt. 10:9-11) Living before the hospitality of others helps us see why Jesus emphasized care for the strangers in his disciples’ midst: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me… Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these sisters and brothers of mine, you have done it to me.” (Matt. 25:35, 40)
We worship and pray in Advent, preparing to welcome Christ at Christmas. But he comes to us, in the words of Albert Schweitzer, “as One unknown.” Jesus comes to us as a stranger.
You might push back because Christ is no stranger to us. But we’ll need to forget that he was seen as a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. We’ll need to forget that he came into the world and the world knew him not. Jesus was, in fact, a stranger. He was born in the same way we all were, and would create chaos in your house just like any child would. He wandered away from his parents in the big city and worried them to death. His life ended in a way uglier than any of us could ever imagine.
Being a stranger doesn’t mean he is distant or unapproachable. This is a stranger who is full of wonder, who fills our lives with astonishment. This one who is beyond our containment is the one who brings God near as Emmanuel — “God With Us.”
The paradox of the Advent journey to Christmas is that we think we’re busy welcoming the strange Jesus as our guest. But we have it backward. This stranger is the host in a new order, and he welcomes us to the table of a great banquet feast of love, welcome, grace, and forgiveness. We are secure and offered a place in his Father’s house. He first invites us. Christ the stranger comes to us, and invites all who would listen: “Come, be my guest and follow me — all the way home.”
Grace and Peace,