Thy Prison is a Holy Place

 

 

Sadhu Sundar Singh was sure that he was doomed to die. He was stranded naked at the bottom of a dry well, and the lid on top was locked shut. A blow from a club had almost broken his arm and it throbbed with pain. Worse, he found himself lying on a mass of putrefying corpses, previous victims of the slow death he now faced. All that he had done to deserve this was preach the gospel of Christ. In despair, he used Christ’s words: “Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Then, on the third night of his appalling incarceration, he heard a grating sound from above. Someone was opening the lid of his prison. Sundar heard a key turn in the lock and the lid of his prison. Sundar heard a key turn in a lock and the iron cover draw back. A voice spoke, telling him to look out for a rope. When it reached him, he put his foot in the loop in the end and was pulled to freedom.

Lying on the ground, his pain suddenly gone, Sundar could hear the well cover being replaced and locked. But when he turned to thank his rescuer, no one was to be seen. Sundar could only thank God for his unaccountable escape. He had yet to realize how miraculous it was.

Sundar was no stranger to signs and wonders. Born into a sikh family in Punjab in 1889, he was so opposed to Christianity by the age of 15 that he denounced the local missionaries and publicly burned the Bible in his native village. Three days afterward, Christ appeared to him in a vision. From then on, Sundar preached the Gospel as a Christian sadhu, a holy man dependent on the generosity of others. After spending some years in northern India, he took his message into neighbouring Tibet.

For centuries Tibet had been a secret kingdom hidden high among the Himalayas. It was ruled by Dalai Lama, a spiritual leader revered by his subjects as king, chief priest, and reincarnation of Buddha. Religious feeling in Tibet was strong. Foreigners were rarely welcome there, let alone anyone attempting to make religious conversions.

During a journey through this inhospitable land, sometime between 1912 and 1918, Sundar arrived at the city of Rasar. He so incensed the head lama there with his Christian preaching that he was condemned to death by starvation at the bottom of a dried-up well, the well from which he was so mysteriously rescued.

As soon as he had recovered from his ordeal, Sundar again began to preach. Word spread that the “dead” man had returned, and he was arrested again. He was dragged before the head lama, who angrily rejected Sundar’s story and decided that someone must have stolen the key to the well.

But the key was where it had always been, chained to the lama’s own girdle. For a few moments the lama was speechless with amazement. He then ordered Sundar to leave Rasar, fearing that such a powerful God as Sundar’s would bring some terrible disaster to the city.

Sundar went in peace, his faith strengthened by the knowledge that he, like Saint Peter centuries before, had been freed from prison by a miracle.