New Year's wish.
The Eighty-first Letter.
New Year's wish.
In the gracious God-Child at Bethlehem dearly beloved sister!
My heart wishes you, and the other fellow-pilgrims, Jesus into your heart for the new year. I know nothing more needful and nothing more blessed to wish, both for myself and for those whom I love. Methinks this divine Child desires of us that we should, on the occasion of the Christmas- and New-Year's feast, offer up to Him in a solemn manner ourselves and what we hold dearest — and especially that we should open and present to Him our heart, for His crib and eternal dwelling.
Divine little Child! Thou foundest no room in the inn; clear out of us all that is still in us of the created and of self! We give Thee free hand; we ourselves will gladly give way to Thee. Our very best is itself unclean before Thee. We will no longer follow ourselves, or our own life, but wish — the sooner the dearer — to see Thee and Thy life alone spread abroad in us; come and be Lord and Master in and among us! Rule, command, lead, govern, and let Thy divine beckoning be the rule of our willing and not-willing, and Thy life in us our whole adornment, godliness, and glory! Yea, Amen!
And so, dear sister! as we are to renew ourselves with the new year in love and in trust toward our Saviour, so shall and will we also renew ourselves in love toward one another, and in the upright mind, hand in hand, to journey on toward Zion. My call to you, and to the rest, is made with the pilgrim-hymn: Come, children! let us go, etc.
German
Der einundachtzigste Brief.
Neujahrswunsch.
In dem holdseligen GOtt-Kinde zu Bethlehem herzlich geliebte Schwester!
Mein Herz wünschet euch, und den übrigen Mitpilgern, JEsum zum neuen Jahr in euer Herz. Ich weiß nichts Nöthigeres und nichts Seligeres zu wünschen, sowohl für mich, als für die, welche ich liebe.
— Opening lines of the original German. The complete transcription of all 605 letters appears in the forthcoming Encounter Press critical edition; Brief 1 is shown in full as a sample.
German text: public domain (1773–75 first edition / 1845 Gesammelte Schriften).
Translator’s notes
What this letter is. A short, warm New-Year and Christmas letter to a sister among her circle of "fellow-pilgrims." The one gift worth wishing, Tersteegen says, is Jesus himself received into the heart. Midway the letter opens into a rapt little prayer to the Christ-child — the divine little Child who found no room in the inn — asking him to clear self out of us and take the whole house of the heart for his own. It closes with a call to renew love for one another on the road "toward Zion," sealed with the opening line of Tersteegen's own pilgrim-hymn.
A few words and echoes.
- The crib and the inn. The letter plays on the Christmas story in Luke — "no room in the inn," the manger: the heart is asked to become the crib the world denied him, and his lasting home.
- Divine little Child! The prayer opens with this tender cry to the Christ-child — the small child of Bethlehem addressed as the soul's whole Lord and Master.
- Toward Zion. "Hand in hand … toward Zion" is the old picture of the pilgrim-people going up together to the heavenly city.
- The pilgrim-hymn. The closing line — Come, children! let us go … — quotes the first words of Tersteegen's own beloved pilgrim-song; he gives only that opening and lets the "etc." carry the rest.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-081 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.