Letters · Erster Band · Theil I (1773)

The divine properties of the Child Jesus. A hearty wish and sigh that He may also be so born in us.

Bd I · Th I · Brief 129 · Der hundertundneunundzwanzigste Brief

Addressee — An Christiana Maria (Mechthild) Griesenbeck, née Engels (1707–1741) — the same correspondent as Briefe 120, 123, 124, 125, and 126 (her sixth letter in this run). Addressed "geliebte Schwester!" with the polite euch/uns (subscription "Euer mitwallender Hirten-Knab nach Bethlehem") — the respectful register here, not the du of her other letters. Addressee from van Andel 279.
Date — 23 December 1732, from Mülheim — a Christmas letter, written two days before the feast.
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil I, pp. 367–369), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften, Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Hundred and Twenty-ninth Letter.

The divine properties of the Child Jesus. A hearty wish and sigh that He may also be so born in us.

In the grace of Jesus, beloved sister!

The great festival of the Child in the manger draws near — on which I cannot forbear to wish you, from my inmost being, a new grace of this most holy childhood. May our little Jesus imprint His divine properties essentially upon us, and grant that, to that end, we may first of all let ourselves be truly wrapped in the swaddling-bands of His most lovely good pleasure, within and without, in all willessness and dependence upon Him!

Ah! that we might be led a little way into the divine occupations of the holy soul of this Child in the manger! It lies in the lap of a poor maidservant just as contentedly as in the lap of His Father in heaven — teaching us to embrace all the appointments of His wisdom over us, and to love the works of obedience and of love no less than the sweet glimpses of light and comfort in solitude and in prayer. It sees itself surrounded with weakness, poverty, wretched ones — yes, sins — and bears this state of humiliation, together with all the sufferings bound up with it, quite calmly and stilly before the eyes of His Father, teaching us a like humility, self-annihilation, and surrender.

Outwardly, the little Child Jesus seems to have nothing special, and to do nothing special, and to know nothing; but inwardly, it beholds, loves, adores, and praises its Father in secret, and offers itself up to Him with all that it is and can do: Father! here am I, to do Thy will, not mine.

Ah, dearest little Jesus! do Thou all this, likewise, in us and through us, that we may keep, in Thee and with Thee, a blessed Christmas feast of which the world knows nothing. Let our heart be Thy stable and Thy manger, wherein Thou mayest be born and harbored; and Thy heart our holy temple, into which we go in, and sing to Thee an unceasing, silent Hallelujah, in Thy innocent childlike being. Amen!

I greet you heartily, and commend you to the faithful oversight of this Immanuel, after the inward and the outward. Remember me too before the Lord.

Your fellow-pilgrim shepherd-boy to Bethlehem.

Mülheim, the 23rd of December 1732.

❦

German

Der hundertundneunundzwanzigste Brief.

Göttliche Eigenschaften des Kindelein JEsus. Herzlicher Wunsch und Seufzer, deß Er auch also in uns geboren werde.

In der Gnade JEsu geliebte Schwester!

Es nahet sich der große Fest-Tag des Kindleins in der Krippen, da ich nicht unterlassen kann, euch eine neue Gnade dieser heiligsten Kindheit aus meinem Innersten zuzuwünschen.

— 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 Christmas letter, written 23 December 1732 to Christiana Maria Griesenbeck, two days before the feast. Instead of a general holiday greeting, Tersteegen gives her a sustained meditation on what the heading calls the divine properties of the Child Jesus — and a prayer that those same properties be "born in us." It is one of his most tender pieces, and its method is characteristic: he looks at the infant in the manger not for sentiment but for a pattern of the inner life. The Child "lies in the lap of a poor maidservant just as contentedly as in the lap of His Father in heaven" — perfectly at peace whether exalted or lowly. From that he draws the lesson: to "embrace all the appointments of His wisdom over us," and to love "the works of obedience and of love no less than the sweet glimpses of light and comfort" — that is, to value hard, dutiful love as much as consoling feelings.

He presses the paradox further. Outwardly the Child "seems to have nothing special, and to do nothing special, and to know nothing" — but inwardly "it beholds, loves, adores, and praises its Father in secret," offering itself up entirely, in the Gospel words "Father! here am I, to do Thy will, not mine." The hidden, self-emptying life of the infant Christ is, for Tersteegen, the whole of true religion in miniature. Then the letter turns into direct Christmas prayer — the passage it is best remembered for: "Ah, dearest little Jesus! do Thou all this, likewise, in us and through us … Let our heart be Thy stable and Thy manger, wherein Thou mayest be born; and Thy heart our holy temple." He wants Christmas to happen inwardly — Christ born in the believer, not merely commemorated. He signs the letter in its Advent key: "Your fellow-pilgrim shepherd-boy to Bethlehem."

A few words and echoes.

The Child in the manger. The letter's whole subject — the nativity read as a school of the interior life (Luke 2). Its "divine properties" are contentment, humility, hidden self-oblation.
Contentment in high and low. The key image — the Child equally "at home" in a poor maid's lap and in the Father's bosom; the soul is to be as content with lowliness and duty as with consolation.
"Here am I, to do Thy will." The Child's inward word to the Father — Jesus' own saying (John 6:38; cf. Psalm 40:8; Hebrews 10:7): the perfect surrender that Tersteegen holds up as the pattern.
The state of humiliation. Tersteegen's phrase (Stand der Erniedrigung) for the self-emptying of the incarnate Child — bearing "weakness, poverty … yes, sins" for our sake (an echo of Philippians 2:6–8).
"Let our heart be Thy stable and Thy manger." The letter's famous prayer — that Christ be born inwardly in the believer, the heart made His crib and His temple (an echo of "until Christ be formed in you," Galatians 4:19).
A silent Hallelujah. The wish to sing God a wordless praise "in Thy innocent childlike being" — worship in stillness, fitting the quiet of the manger.
Immanuel. The Christmas name (Matthew 1:23; Isaiah 7:14 — "God with us"); Tersteegen commends her to "this Immanuel's faithful oversight."

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, I. Theil, Brief 129 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-129.html.

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