Many consider it the most beautiful building in the world. 20,000 workers spent seventeen years building it at a cost of millions of dollars. Built primarily of white marble, more than 28 types of precious and semi-precious stones were used as well, gathered from all over Asia. It was built out of love by Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to her fourteenth child. Although “Taj Mahal” means crown palace, it is not a palace. It is a tomb.

Expanses of green grass and neat tombstones give a certain beauty to our cemeteries. It helps us forget, perhaps, that the mortal remains of our loved ones are buried there. Even a nice monument, with the names and birth and death dates inscribed, cannot convey much about the one who is gone. Every cemetery we see indicates nothing but heartache, unless those asleep are asleep in Jesus.

“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).

“Comfort one another with these words!” For those in Christ, this life is not all there is. Hallelujah!