The Man Who Wouldn't Rise

For the past two months, the South African media has been following an interesting story.

Paul Meintjes died 57 days ago. A prophet in his church said, "Do not bury his body. He's going to rise within 30 days." So his family kept him refrigerated, hoping for the best. The mortician checked in on him once a day to see if there were any sign of life. Nope, nothing.

After 30 days, his body had started to show signs of deterioration (even though frozen), and he definitely hadn't risen from the dead. The prophet went in a few times to talk to the body, to command it to rise up. He said it had, but then had refrozen before the man could be let out of the locked morgue.

At the 30-day mark a crowd gathered outside the building, chanting "rise up, rise up" - waiting to see if Paul would indeed rise from the dead. Nope, he didn't.

A few days later a stranger turned up from the Cape, claiming he was there to raise the dead. He had been given the power by God Himself, and "if anyone believes in me, he will not perish but have eternal life" (believe in this prophet guy, apparently). Well, he went and exhorted the body to rise. No luck. He disappeared without another word.

In the meantime the mortician was getting a bit antsy about having this dead guy taking up his shelf-space and starting to decompose, so started charging the family R1,000 a day to house the body. Paul's sister wasn't on the Resurrection Team, and had pleaded for the family to just go bury him, but was met with stony resistance.

Yesterday, 56 days after he died, Paul Meintjes was buried. Simply, in a plain coffin, laid to rest in dry stony ground with many others. His sister is relieved. His family is still hiding from the media and say it doesn't matter that he was buried, he's still going to rise. The mayor and other officials are glad the whole thing is over.

And the rest of South Africa has moved on to other news.