“Become what you are!” These are words that are heard from time to time as a challenge for us human beings. These words call us to better ourselves. “Become what you are,” bids us to strive for that which we are potentially but not actually. “Become what you are,” can sound like good news on those days that we feel especially strong and healthy. “Become what you are,” can feel very threatening on those days we are weak, sick, and discouraged.
The Christian perspective views this imperative, to become what we are, as correct but unattainable. Our teaching on creation is that God created human beings uniquely among creatures. We were created for relationship with God, creation, and self. With respect to God we are to understand ourselves as creatures, not creator.
You know the story in Genesis 3. We want to be gods. We do not want to be in relationship to God. We do not want responsibility for creation. Our denial of God leaves us in a lonely world. The responsibility for creation becomes an overwhelming burden. We are alienated from our own selves. We have not become what we are.
We were given responsibility for creation (“have dominion” and “tend the garden”). We are to care for ourselves primarily by trusting in God—not the “watchmaker” God who creates the world and then walks off into a remote distance leaving the world on its own. For the Christian, God is the sustaining God whose word is not a mechanical command. The word which creates the world is a sustaining word. It is like breath.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground. (Psalm 104:29-30)
That is how Luther understood it. In the Small Catechism he says,
I believe that God has created me together with all creatures. God has given me and still preserves my body and soul.
Life in our world demands that we “become what we are.” We feel a terrible sense of “oughtness” on our shoulders. We realize that becoming what we are is not simply a matter of growing bigger, or getting older, or becoming wiser. Growing bigger is a matter of DNA. We are not much different than beanstalks that grow to a prescribed blueprint. We can act like getting older is better, but ask someone who is older about that. We can imagine that our bodies are not ourselves, just shells which contain pure souls. In this model we become what we are by releasing the soul from the body. Becoming what we are is like an escape from creation, not solidarity with creation. Even becoming wiser offers little hope. When the author of Ecclesiastes attained wisdom, he could only say,
Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 1:2)
In these instances of “becoming” (bigger, older, wiser) there is very little sense of grace, i.e., creation as a gift, caring for creation in partnership with the Creator, and the gift of faith in God. The reason for this graceless condition is the absence of a gracious God whom we are unable to perceive. It is this God who confronts us during the Advent season. The confrontation feels harsh because God is trying to get through. But do not despair. God is trying to get through with a different form of the message, “Become what you are.”
This message is both demand and promise. The advent of our God demands that we become what we are. It also promises to achieve this by God’s Word.
Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:5)
When God breaks through, it is in the form of weakness—our weakness. It is the weakness of a peasant family, a young and unwed mother, and an infant lowly. The Word comes to us in the flesh! “Become what you are!—not by the stress and strain of a world without God. But behold what God has accomplished in Christ and trust in the baptismal promise that God will work this same work in you. By the gift of God’s self celebrated in the Feast of the Incarnation we receive the good news that God is still at work in God’s creation and in us.