Our body's dilapidation should make us look about, after the divine dwelling, through prayer, faith, and love.

What this letter is. A New Year letter of 2 January 1749, written from Mülheim to a brother — Johann Peter Schmitz of Solingen, whose name the old print suppresses and the critical edition restores. He answers two little letters of the 16th and 23rd of December, thanks God that both their "outward huts" have been preserved into the New Year, and then turns the body's dilapidation into the argument's whole motion: look about, after the divine dwelling, through prayer, faith, and love. It is a 2 Corinthians 5 letter, and it closes in haste with a greeting to the brother and their two sisters.

The hut and the prop. "I thank the Lord with you from the heart, that He has preserved your outward hut and mine into the New Year, and, as it seems, has patched a little prop onto the dilapidated building. But how long the prop will hold, the Lord knows." The body is a hut and a dilapidated building; whatever recovery they have had is a prop clapped onto it, not a rebuilding. "Meanwhile we both feel well enough that there is not much to be trusted to it; the hut remains shaking and creaking." So they keep the former resolution: to look about after a better and more enduring dwelling in the heavens. That dwelling is "an incomparable building from God," consisting in the divine brightness, the glorious immortality, and the immortal glory — which in Adam receded and faded, but in the incarnation and birth of Christ is brought into humanity again.

The coal and the garment. Union with that so-near God-man, the glorious divine little Child, is by prayer, faith, loving, and inward turning. He "swallows up our misery in Himself, and imparts His brightness to us, as a cold black coal is kindled and made beautiful by a glowing coal that draws near to it; then the coal has no longer its black, but a beautiful shining garment." Then the groan of 2 Corinthians 5: "that we may put on this garment in the body's life, and that, before we through bodily death still put off, all that is black and mortal may be swallowed up of the life of brightness in Jesus." The wish for the new year is that it be mightily blessed to this; he names the brother and their two sisters before the face of God, unites himself with them anew, to take hold of one another and to bear joy and sorrow together. Amen, Jesus.

A few words and echoes.

• not ashamed to become our brother. The salutation is already Hebrews 2:11 — "for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren."
• outward hut. äußere Hütte — the earthly house of the tabernacle (2 Corinthians 5:1; also 2 Corinthians 4:16, "our outward man").
• patched a little prop onto the dilapidated building. angelappt — clapped or patched on (the critical edition's ²: angeflickt). The recovery is a prop, not a repair.
• shaking and creaking. wanckend und krachend — the hut as it actually is, not as they would have it.
• a better and more enduring dwelling in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1 — "we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.")
• which in Adam receded and faded. The glory was in humanity, withdrew in the fall, and is brought in again at the incarnation.
• God-man and glorious divine little Child. The nearness is Christmas still: the Child who is God with us, two days into the new year.
• a cold black coal. Kindled by a glowing coal that draws near — His brightness imparted, not achieved.
• we also groan. (2 Corinthians 5:2, 5:4 — "For in this we groan… that mortality might be swallowed up of life.")
• in the body's life. bey Leibes Leben — to put the garment on before death puts the body off.
• most inward concern. innigster Angelegenheit — the soul's concern before God for them, not a mere "occasion."
• joy and sorrow together. Lieb und Leid — the old pair: to take hold of one another, and bear both.
• Amen, Jesus! Vocative close, not a rhymed verse.
• devoted weak fellow-brother. verbundener schwacher Mitbruder — the house close, written in haste.