Each Advent season, I enjoy penning a poem to encourage God’s flock in the overflowing hope and joy of Christ. I’m grateful that God again granted a sense of creative inspiration to provide you with this piece entitled Empty Christmas. I’m praying that the Savior uses these simple words to draw you near and ever nearer to His heart of grace.
Watch the short film or read the lines below:
Empty Christmas | Redeeming Christmas from the Emptiness | A Christmas Eve Poem 2019 | By Michael J. Breznau
The air was thin
A heart restless, empty within
Another Christmas, another song
Yet we wonder: “This will go on for how long?”
Dusty tinsel lined the Wal-Mart shelves
Thanksgiving decorations were crowded out with elves
The bells were ringing
Mariah Carey kept on singing
Shortened days and longer nights accentuate a hallow ring
Which echoes through many souls till spring
Ornaments, lights, and lore
Can’t seem to fill a void deep in our core
Onward we march to Amazon’s drum
But we’re still left feeling droopy and glum
“Empty!” is the song that sings
behind all the holiday bling
We clothe our Christmas with crazy-happy
But it all wraps up like a Hallmark flick – just a bit too sappy
Flopped on the couch, once more we feel the gloom
Is there something that can fill this soul-vacuum?
Through all the lights and holiday noise
A different anthem softly drifts by the piles of plastic toys
Christmas is empty, meaningless, and void
If left to the devices of ploys and decoys
Many dodge – left and right
Attempting to make their hearts feel bright
But the only way to have a heart made full
Is by receiving God’s gift of Christ into your soul
Redeeming Christmas from the craziness
Now that may seem like a goal altogether pointless!
But pause to gaze into His Light
Your heart’s darkness will slowly melt away into the bright
You’ll find in Him true Life
Even your heart’s full, abundant delight
Another song will sing in the air – vastly different than the first
To your restless, shadowed heart – this one repeats: “Peace on earth!”
Come behold the newborn King this way
Receive Him into your heart today
He’ll “cast out your sin and enter in”
You’ll receive the new, forever-life in Him
Then bow your knees before His stable-throne
(A startling contrast to the world’s “famous and well-known”)
Jesus, we worship and adore
The One who emptied Himself so we could be filled up with Him forevermore
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“…the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could He die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.” (Heb. 2:14b NLT)
“but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” (Phil. 2:7 NASB)
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NASB)
