LAZARUS is built around a simple comparison: seeing someone down does not mean you know why they are there. In the Bible, Lazarus was lying in a tomb, but nobody would have looked at him and called him lazy. There was a reason he could not get up. The song takes that image and brings it into everyday life, where people are often much quicker to judge. Someone may be sleeping late, unemployed, falling behind, or barely functioning, but what looks like laziness from the outside could be grief, physical pain, exhaustion, depression, loss, or something else nobody can see.

That is where the wordplay between “Lazarus” and “lazy ass” comes in. The song challenges the instinct to slap a label on somebody before knowing what put them on the ground in the first place. Lazarus needed the stone rolled away before he walked out of the tomb, and sometimes people today need help getting back on their feet too. LAZARUS is not saying laziness does not exist. It is saying that before you decide somebody simply refuses to stand, make sure you understand what might be keeping them down.