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From Luke’s Journal June 2024  |  Vol.29 No.2  |  Christian Hospitality

When I was first asked to create a design for this issue of hospitality, the idea of “hands reaching out” popped into my mind. When we extend hospitality to others, we often also extend our hands – serving food, giving a handshake, ushering someone into a warm home, or a warm embrace.

This reaching out has to come from somewhere. Matthew chapter 25 tells the Parable of the Ten Virgins. The wise virgins waited for the bridegroom with their lamps and with extra oil in jars, representing a living and continuing relationship with the Lord. The foolish virgins did not bring oil, and found that eventually their lamps started going out. If we are to continue joyfully extending hospitality to others, we first must know the hospitality that God has extended to us, bringing us into his heavenly kingdom through Christ Jesus and adopting us as His very own. It is out of this personal relationship and experience that the love, servanthood and compassion of Christ can shine through us to lift and warm the hearts of those around us. It is this very “heart of hospitality”, a wonderful prompt given by the editor of this issue, that I have sought to capture in the artwork.

Finally, in considering what Christian hospitality is, I think of these words from St Teresa of Avila which so beautifully articulate the notion of being the “hands and feet” of Christ:
“Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.”

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