Loose Him, and Let Him Go

Today I listened to a BYU devotional talk by Eric Shumway, former president of BYU Hawaii. He spoke of the story of Lazarus and said this: “The climactic moment comes when Christ cries out in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth’ (v. 43). Can you imagine that combination of hope, terror, and surprise the people feel when Lazarus obeys the command and rises, ‘bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin’ (v. 44)? The sight and smell of this dead man must have been more than some could bear. But then came Christ’s second command to certain others standing by: ‘Loose him, and let him go’ (v. 44). Think of it. Christ was commanding the people to free Lazarus, to remove the graveclothes and unbind the wrappings from around his eyes, mouth, hands, and feet—the wrappings of the grave. For he lived again! Think of the joy! But can we imagine also the hesitancy of some to reach out and remove the graveclothes? No doubt some shrank away completely.” He then applied the story to us in this way: “For me the Lazarus story provides one of the most powerful metaphors of the Atonement of Christ for all humankind. We are all like Lazarus, beloved of the Lord, but wrapped about in the graveclothes of this world.” He suggested that two injunctions by the Savior in this story are particularly important for us today. In that dramatic moment when they reached the tomb of Lazarus the Savior called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:43). The Savior invites each of us to “come forth” from the spiritual death we are in and be healed by Him. The name Lazarus means “God is my helper,” and He calls out to each of us to let Him help us. Brother Shumway asked, “What if Lazarus, exercising his agency even as a spirit, had decided he did not want to return to a decaying, tortured body?” But he didn’t, and he followed the Savior’s command to come forth. We can each strive to do the same when He invites us to be changed.

               The second important injunction from the Savior in the story of Lazarus is this one: “Loose him, and let him go” (John 11:44). Brother Shumway commented, “The acts of helping to remove someone’s ‘graveclothes,’ as it were, are the essence of a Latter-day Saint’s errand from the Lord. You may ask yourself, ‘Am I an unbinder or am I a binder? Do I help loose or remove the graveclothes of others, or do I wrap their graveclothes more tightly around them?’” Though it is the Savior who healed Lazarus and rose him from the grave, He asked the people there to help in Lazarus’s restoration by removing what had bound him. And surely He asks each of us to likewise help to free those who are tied up in sin and sorrow in mortality. Brother Shumway told the story of a Japanese boy named Katsuhiro Kajiyama who was in Hiroshima as a young boy at the time the atomic bomb was dropped. He was traumatized as he watched his mother take twenty days to pass away from the effects of the bomb. His brother was never found. After that experience he believed he “would never find peace in this cruel and harsh existence.” But “one day an American named Elder Gary Roper spoke to him: ‘How is school? Do you live nearby? I see you often in the streetcar. Would you like to join an activity for young people?’ Kats said he was amazed by this American’s indescribably tender smile.” He later related, “I was unfamiliar with this type of gentleness from foreigners…. Until then I had [believed] all Americans were heartless monsters who willingly sought to hurt and degrade the Japanese people.” Brother Shumway continued the story: “After Elder Roper, it was Elder Green. One year had passed since his first introduction to the Church. He was still reluctant to join, but at a district conference in Hiroshima, the voice of Christ from the mouth of mission president Paul C. Andrus commanded, ‘“Come forth.” Be baptized.’ In contrast to the horrific flash of light in the atomic bomb blast, Kats wrote of his baptism: ‘At that moment . . . I felt as though the brightest sun had broken through the clouds and streamed through the building. The whole auditorium seemed to be brightly lit and glowing. I was . . . filled with incomprehensible happiness and joy.’ You can guess the rest of the story. The graveclothes of his tortured past were now unwrapped. The cynicism, hatred, and bitterness were gone. Kats was called on a mission to his native Japan. As a missionary he helped teach and baptize 80 people.” The selfless work of these missionaries had helped to unwrap the graveclothes of Katsuhiro as he came forth to the Savior.

               When the Savior gave keys of the priesthood to Peter during mortality, He said this, “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19). Surely the primary meaning of these words was about ordinances of the priesthood that would be performed under the direction of these keys. But perhaps we can also apply the promise to each of us: we can have power to loose on earth in such a way that heaven will be changed as we serve others. In other words, like the missionaries who unloosed the bands that bound this young Japanese man through the sharing of the gospel, so too can we loose the figurative graveclothes of those around us in such a way that their eternal course is forever changed. In that sense, we should strive each day to be an “unbinder” and not a “binder” as we help loose the bands of others so the Savior can heal them just as He did Lazarus.