Hebrews 13:2 (NIV) Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

(Celtic Rune of Hospitality):

We saw a stranger yesterday.
We put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place,
Music in the listening place,
And with the sacred name of the triune God
He blessed us and our house,
Our cattle and our dear ones.
As the lark says in her song:
Often, often, often, goes the Christ
In the stranger’s guise.

John Bell tells this story:

I met him on the train, and before long I felt I knew him, I felt I could trust him. He was in education: “learning for life” he called it. I said I was interested in education too, so he invited me to come with him to where he taught and learned. It was off the main road, near the fire station. It didn’t look like a school… You walked in the door of a secondhand shop and, going through the back, you came to a big room with a lot of people in it. We stood and looked around. In the corner was an old man with a white stick. Beside him sat a girl reading him the newspaper.

“Nice to see young folk helping the blind,” I said. “Oh,” he replied, “he’s actually teaching her how to see.” Across the floor, in the direction of the toilets, came a wheelchair. A paraplegic boy of 18 sat in it and a boy the same age pushed it. “It’s great when friends help each other,” I said. “Yes,” he replied, “the boy in the chair is teaching the other how to walk.” An old woman lay in a bed at the bottom of the room. She was covered with open sores. A woman, much her junior, was dressing her wounds. “Is she a nurse?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied, “the old woman is a nurse. She is teaching the other how to care.” Seated around a table were a group of young couples. A doctor in a white coat was talking to them about childbirth. He spoke slowly and used sign language with his friends. “I think it’s only fair that deaf people should know about these things,” I said. “But they do know about these things,” my friend replied. “They are teaching the doctor how to listen.” And then I saw a woman on a respirator, breathing slowly. These were her last breath. And around her were her friends, smoothing and brow, holding her hands. “It’s not good to die alone,” I said. “That’s right,” he replied, “but she is not dying alone. She is teaching the others how to live.” Confused and not knowing what to say, I suggested we sit down.

After a while, I felt I could speak. “Seeing all this,” I said, “I want to pray. I want to thank God that I have all my faculties. I now realise how much I can do to help.” Before I could say more, he looked at me straight in the face and said, “I don’t want to upset your devotional life, but I hope you will also pray to know your own need. And I hope you will never be afraid to be touched by the needy.”    ‘Often goes the Christ in guise of a stranger’.