Whether you’re religious or not, we can probably all agree that the modern world could use a few miracles. We can also probably agree that miracles aren’t really a thing that realistically happens. Regardless, a South African church claims they created a miracle — and it’s all on video.
Meet Pastor Alph Lukau.
Pastor Lukau, who operates out of a church near Johannesburg, South Africa, has quite the social media presence. I’d tell you more, but really, everything you might need to know is crammed into his Facebook profile pic.
Buckle up.
That’s, uh, quite a claim. Pastor Lukau’s sermons tend to draw huge crowds locally, and with a promise like that, he was assured a large audience online as well.
Resurrection day arrived.
There was a huge crowd in attendance. This shot shows the overflow crowd in the basement. I mention this because that caption in the lower left mysteriously appears and reappears throughout the hours-long video , whether it’s showing the basement or not.
He warmed the crowd up.
His charismatic presence got everyone energized. Ever the showman, Pastor Lukau let the crowd get all geared up for the event, building anticipation for what promised to be a literal miracle.
Bring in the dead guy.
In case you can’t make out the lettering on the back of the hearse, it says, “Real funeral services”. That alone should be enough to reassure you that there’s a real dead guy inside, and a real resurrection is about to take place.
Here he is!
Golden microphone in hand, Pastor Lukau put a hand on the guy’s chest to confirm that, yes, he is in fact deader than a doornail. Next stop: Resurrectionville, starring this guy.
Yep, definitely dead.
If you can ignore the fact that the corpse is breathing — breathing hard, in fact, literally gasping for air at times — this is almost believable. I mean, he’s in a coffin! He must be dead.
Ignore the naysayers.
Yeah, parts of this looked suspicious at times, but it must be legit. There’s no way a stunt like this would make anybody mad, or lead to a lawsuit or anything, right?
He lives!
It was the moment of truth, and Pastor Lukau totally nailed it. The former corpse continued gasping for air as he sat bolt upright in his coffin, mugging for the camera as he did so.
Let’s see that again.
That’s totally what I would imagine it would look like if a corpse suddenly became reanimated. With a spring in his step, he exited the coffin and started having fun.
He was hungry.
Makes sense, considering he’d just come back from the dead. He ran back and forth in front of the cheering crowd before sitting down and enjoying a well-deserved meal.
So…there’s a lawsuit.
Three funeral homes are reportedly suing the pastor because they feel like were manipulated by a cheap stunt. For his part, Pastor Lukau has backtracked, saying that the man was “already alive” when he was resurrected. Huh.
The government is angry, too.
A government ministry said , “We have discovered that there are no such things as miracles. They are made up to try to get money from the hopelessness of our people.”
It’s a big mess.
While Pastor Lukau hasn’t said much, apart from rescinding the whole resurrection claim, this drama has ignited a debate in South Africa, with people crying foul over what they see as a manipulative stunt.
It’s worthy of its viral status.
To some it was a miracle, to others it was offensive. To most of the internet, however, it’s an absurd scene to watch. Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
