Left for dead. His enemies secured it; the Romans ensured it. Laid in the dust of a stone-cold tomb. Left for dead. The Truth buried. The power of love tossed aside after being stabbed in the back and pierced in the side by the love of power.

The Truth trampled; the Savior silenced and sealed in a stone-cold tomb. Love was left for dead by those who could not bear to hear the Truth. Love was left for dead, but the Lord of Love who had died would rise by the power of the Spirit, the love between the Father and the Son.

On the third day, the Lord of Love left death in the dust of a stone-cold tomb. The Lord of Love, left that stone-cold tomb ablaze with the love of God and love for those who had abandoned him and denied him; for those who had betrayed him and falsely accused him and shouted “crucify him;” the ones for whom he had prayed, “Father, forgive them!”

The Love that was left for dead; the Truth that was buried, left sin and evil and death in the dust of a stone-cold tomb as he burst forth with new creation life charged by the heat of divine love.

It’s in the hope found in a stone-cold, empty tomb that stone-cold hearts are strangely warmed and set ablaze with the love of the crucified Savior and the life of the risen Lord, Jesus, the Christ.

Love was left for dead, but the Lord of Love left sin and death in the dust when he left that stone-cold tomb. But rest assured beloved, that same Savior who left that tomb promised that he would never leave us or forsake us. For in His own glorious resurrection, by faith, we find in his empty tomb, the assurance of our own.

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 KJV