Elder Holland used this true story as a metaphor to help us
understand and appreciate our desperate need to be rescued by the Savior.
While rock climbing without any safety gear in southern
Utah, two brothers encountered a protruding ledge that kept them from reaching
the top of a canyon wall. They could not get over it, nor could they safely
climb back down. The older brother was able to boost the younger brother up and
over the ledge to safety, but he knew he could not reach the ledge himself
without jumping. He also knew he faced the risk of falling to his death if he
tried to jump. Since he did not want his younger brother to see him fall and
die, he told his brother to go look for a tree branch. The older brother then
leapt as high as he could and grabbed the ledge, but, unable to hold onto it,
he started slipping toward his death.
“Because we were then born into that fallen world [that
resulted from Adam and Eve’s transgression] and because we too would transgress
the laws of God, we also were sentenced to the same penalties that Adam and Eve
faced.
“What a plight! The entire human race in free fall—every
man, woman, and child in it physically tumbling toward permanent death,
spiritually plunging toward eternal anguish. Is that what life was meant to
be?”
“‘But then suddenly, like a lightning strike in a summer
storm, two hands shot out from somewhere above the edge of the cliff, grabbing
my wrists with a strength and determination that belied their size. My faithful
little brother had not gone looking for any fictitious tree branch. Guessing
exactly what I was planning to do, he had never moved an inch. He had simply
waited—silently, almost breathlessly—knowing full well I would be foolish
enough to try to make that jump. When I did, he grabbed me, held me, and
refused to let me fall. Those strong brotherly arms saved my life that day as I
dangled helplessly above what would surely have been certain death’” (Jeffrey
R. Holland, “Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet,” 104–5).
