Lately it feels like unsupported mental illness is everywhere in the news. These stories are threads woven so tightly through our lives that they’re no longer in the background but a significant part of society’s very fabric itself. And as I watch those threads fray, my mind drifts to the Lazarus story…not by accident, it’s coming up in the lectionary. But it happens to be one of my favorite sources of thought food for my brain stomach…and frankly, it feels appropriate that it should come up at such a time as this.

I’ve always been a skeptic about Bible magic. It feels like the gospel writers hit the skip button. Like that one Seinfeld episode where George is like bada bing, bada boom, problem solved. Lazarus was dying, Jesus showed up, stone rolled away, Bada bing Bada boom: Lazarus lives.

But in real life nothing works that way. Addiction, depression, trauma… they’re not solved with a wand or a thought / prayer. They’re slow-moving earthquakes inside a person’s mind and body.

So I wonder: what if the Lazarus story wasn’t magic at all? What if Lazarus wasn’t just lying there, dead, but locked in his own invisible tomb: addiction, untreated mental illness, relentless despair. What if he was the guy nobody knew how to help, the one written off as “too far gone.”

And what if “Jesus” didn’t just appear for a moment but sat with him, day after day, like a sponsor, a social worker, a therapist, a friend. What if the “miracle” was actually steady presence? Teaching him to cope, to take just that one next step, to work with the doors that were open, to build workarounds for the barriers, and to believe that he still had worth. Teaching him how to live when living felt impossible.

That’s no bada bing, bada boom. That’s slow, awkward, holy work. That’s untangling the threads one by one. That’s weaving new fabric.

And then one day, Lazarus walks out. Not because magic happened, but because somebody stayed. Because compassion refused to quit. Because he learned, step by step, to breathe again.

To me, that’s a far more important miracle: not a dead man revived, but a broken man supported back into life. Not a magician but a mentor. Not spectacle but solidarity.

When I read it this way, Lazarus is any of us or possibly even all of us — or the people we love who are hurting. And “Jesus” can be anyone willing to show up, to sit in the hard place, to help someone untangle their knots, to teach, to listen, to hold hope when hope is gone.

And… Perhaps… the Lazarus story is a blueprint for such a time as this: how to respond when unsupported mental illness threatens to bury someone alive. Not with magic, but with patient, relentless, practical love. Not skipping the hard parts, but walking through them.

And maybe…just maybe, if we do that, bada bing, bada boom: Lazarus lives…and so might we.