Tragedy has shaken the parishioners of the Zion Church, a Christian congregation in Zambia, after the death of its pastor, James Sakara, only 22 years old, who wanted to bury himself alive in order to ’emulate Jesus’.
The tragic event comes after a ‘challenge’ that the pastor had set himself, who wanted to demonstrate to his parishioners that he had the ability to emulate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
To do so, he asked to be buried alive in the ground, with the order to dig him up three days later and be able to demonstrate that, like Jesus of Nazareth, he would ‘rise again’.
Pastor dies after burying himself alive while trying to ’emulate Jesus’ and resurrect on the third day
Most members of his community were very reluctant to Sakara’s idea, and tried to prevent him from committing such madness.
However, the religious man managed to convince three men from his congregation to help him with his task, and was buried with his hands tied in a shallow grave so that he could complete the challenge.
The young religious man, a fervent follower of traditional medicine, tried to explain his decision to his parishioners and justified himself by quoting some passages from the Bible.
According to the religious man, Jesus said to his disciples: “Do this in memory of me”, and he interpreted that he was referring to the Messiah’s own resurrection and that his followers should help him in this challenge.
However, the reality was quite different. Sakara’s idea was to ’emerge’ from his tomb, just as Jesus did, but instead and as various local media now report, his body was found lifeless in the makeshift tomb dug in the ground, when he was dug up 72 hours later.
The parishioners gathered there tried the impossible to get him to breathe, including some ‘spiritual exercises’ in order to recover the pastor, but to no avail, and he had been dead for several hours.
The news has caused a great commotion in the African Christian community, which cannot explain why the religious would have chosen to do such a crazy thing.
