1. A Man Walks Out of a Tomb

Bethany is less than two miles from Jerusalem. Four days after Lazarus is buried, his sisters are still receiving mourners. The cave that holds the body is sealed with a stone. The smell of decay has begun. Then a Galilean rabbi walks up the road. He has been delayed on purpose — He could have come earlier and prevented the death. He stops at the cave. He weeps in front of the stone. He commands the stone to be moved. He raises His eyes to His Father. Then He says four words: Lazarus, come out. And the dead man walks out, his graveclothes still wrapped around him.

Read the chapter and you will see something the casual reader misses. Before Jesus walks to the tomb, He says one sentence that explains everything that is about to happen:

Jesus speaks the sentence to Martha while Lazarus is still in the tomb. Minutes later He stands in front of the cave and performs what He has just declared. The words and the act are one teaching. The miracle is not separate from the sermon. The miracle is the sermon. That is the principle of this unit.

2. The Principle

Christ’s miracles are not random displays of power. They are not advertising for His ministry. They are not stunts to attract a crowd. Many of them also function as enacted signs — they preach as well as demonstrate power and compassion. The Greek word the Apostle John prefers for Jesus’ miracles is sêmeion — sign. A sign is something that points beyond itself. Where Scripture itself draws out that pointing, as John does again and again, the miracle is the visible word, and the spoken word interprets it.

Treat a miracle as a spectacle and you will preach a thrill. Treat a miracle as an enacted parable and you will preach the gospel. The fish were not the point of the feeding of the five thousand. The bread was not the point. The point was the Bread of Life, which Jesus declared aloud the next day in John 6. The miracle preached. Then the spoken word interpreted the miracle.

3. Lazarus as Enacted Parable

The raising of Lazarus has four movements, and each one is part of a single sermon Jesus is preaching with His hands and His voice together.

The tragedy of death. Lazarus dies, even though Jesus is told he is sick. Death is not gentle in the Bible. When my sister’s infant daughter died after a routine operation when I was fifteen, my first experience with death was the death of a child who had not yet learned to walk. Death is a tragedy when a young man dies. It is a tragedy when an unbeliever dies. It is a tragedy when a long illness finally takes someone. The Lord acknowledged the tragedy — Jesus wept, John tells us, in the shortest verse in the Bible. He did not pretend death was nothing. He wept at it.

The trial of death. Jesus could have come early. He stayed where He was two more days. The disciples did not understand. Martha did not understand. Mary did not understand. Jesus was teaching them — and us — that God’s timing is not our timing, and that delay is part of how He prepares His people to see His glory. The miracle would not have been a miracle if Jesus had arrived in time to prevent the death. The delay was the canvas on which the miracle would be painted.

The tears of death. Mary weeps. Martha weeps. The professional mourners weep. The Jewish neighbors weep. And Jesus weeps. Many years ago I sat with a woman whose husband had left her for another woman. She was holding back her grief, refusing to let it be real. The day she finally let herself cry was the day she began to heal. Tears are part of how God lets the heart loose. The Lord did not deny the tears at Bethany. He shed them Himself before He raised the dead.

The triumph of death. Jesus calls in a loud voice. Lazarus comes out. The graveclothes are still on him. Jesus says, Loose him, and let him go. The miracle does what the sentence said: I am the resurrection and the life. It is the sermon, preached with a tomb as the pulpit and a corpse as the demonstration. A pastor who reads this story only as a wonder misses what Jesus was teaching. He was not advertising His power. He was preaching Himself. The miracle is the message.

4. The Paralytic at Capernaum

If Lazarus shows the principle in its grandest form, Mark 2 shows it most plainly. Four friends bring a paralyzed man to Jesus by lowering him through the roof. The crowd is so thick they cannot reach Him any other way. Jesus looks at the paralytic and says something startling. He does not say, Rise and walk. He says, Son, your sins are forgiven you.

The scribes object silently. Only God can forgive sins. Jesus reads their thoughts and asks them a question that unlocks the whole gospel.

Read those verses slowly. Jesus tells us in plain language what every miracle of His is doing. That you may know. The miracle is performed so the invisible reality — forgiveness — can be seen. The paralytic stands up to prove the sins are gone. The visible act preaches the invisible truth. Mark’s entire Gospel is built on this rhythm. Christ heals so people will know who can forgive. Christ stills the storm so the disciples will ask, Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him? Christ feeds five thousand so the crowd will hear Him say, I am the bread of life. Every miracle preaches. Every miracle is an enacted parable.

5. How to Read a Miracle Story

For every miracle you preach, ask four questions. First, what physical action does Jesus perform? A man is healed, a storm is stilled, water becomes wine. State the visible event plainly. Second, what does Jesus say before, during, or after the miracle? The spoken word almost always interprets the act. I am the resurrection. I am the bread of life. Your sins are forgiven. The spoken word is the key to the miracle. Third, what spiritual truth do the action and the word together preach? Resurrection from death. Provision in spiritual hunger. Forgiveness for sin. Authority over creation. Sight for the blind soul. Fourth, how does this truth meet the needs of the people who will hear my sermon? The visible miracle preached to the original eyewitnesses. The same truth preaches today to the same kinds of hearts.

Notice that none of the four questions is, How did Jesus do that scientifically? The miracle is not a physics problem. The miracle is a sermon in motion. The pastor whose Sunday morning is spent defending the chemistry of water becoming wine misses what John was teaching with that story.

6. The Cardiologist in Chattanooga

Dr. Maurice Rawlings was a heart specialist in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was a nominal Christian when this happened. A patient came in for a treadmill stress test. The man had a heart attack during the test. Rawlings revived him. The patient was screaming, I feel the flames, do not let me go. He had another attack and the same thing happened. He had a third attack. Three times the man went to the edge.

The third time, all Rawlings could remember was a verse he had learned in Sunday School: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. He asked the man, Do you believe? The man believed. The man lived. Rawlings re-examined his own faith, became active in his church, and the patient joined that church and served the Lord for the rest of his days.

That doctor was preaching the same sermon Jesus preached at the tomb of Lazarus. The patient’s revival was an enacted parable. The man came back from physical death three times so that he could be saved from spiritual death once. The body was the canvas; the soul was the painting. Read your own pastoral ministry that way and you will see God acting in your church the way He acted at Bethany. The healed body, the rescued marriage, the recovered addict, the answered prayer — every one of them is a sermon waiting for the pastor to interpret. Do not let the visible event remain unexplained. Speak the spoken word that turns the act into a sermon.

7. Common Errors in Preaching Miracles

Three errors trap many pastors when a miracle text comes up in the calendar. Each is a way of forgetting that the miracle is an enacted parable.

The naturalistic error. This is the modernist’s habit of explaining the miracle away. The feeding of the five thousand becomes a story about everyone sharing their hidden lunches. The stilling of the storm becomes Jesus catching a calm patch. The walking on water becomes a sandbar. The pastor who explains miracles away has nothing left to preach. The Author was not telling us a metaphor when He said Lazarus came out of the tomb. He was telling us a miracle. Let the miracle stand. Then preach it.

The spectacle error. The opposite mistake. The pastor stops at look how powerful Jesus is. He preaches a miracle as a thrill, but he never lets the miracle become a sermon. His congregation goes home impressed. They do not go home changed. The miracle was meant to preach the resurrection, the bread of life, the forgiveness of sin. Stop at the spectacle and you starve your people of the message.

The allegorical error. Unit 6 warned us against this in parables. The same warning applies to miracles. We do not get to invent symbolic meanings for every detail. The five loaves are not the five books of Moses. The twelve baskets of leftovers are not the twelve apostles. Stay with the central word Jesus spoke alongside the miracle. That word is the authorized interpretation. Anything else is the preacher’s invention.

8. Falling Asleep on the Couch

One evening a young boy who had been watching a program about death asked his mother, What is it like to die? She thought for a moment and said, It is like falling asleep on the couch in the evening, and waking up in your own bed. The reason is that your father picks you up and carries you off and tucks you in. In the same way, death for a Christian is like falling asleep — the Father comes and carries you off, and you wake up and find yourself in the right place.

That mother was preaching the resurrection of Lazarus to her son in language his ears could carry. She was speaking the spoken word that interprets the visible reality of death. The miracle Jesus performed at Bethany was that same word made flesh — the Father, in His Son, picking up Lazarus and carrying him out of the tomb into the right place. A pastor who learns to read miracles as enacted parables can speak that same comfort in a thousand pastoral moments. A hospital room. A graveside. A widow at her kitchen table. The resurrection of Lazarus preaches there.

9. The Pastor’s Sermon Method on a Miracle Text

When a miracle text falls on your Sunday, work the four questions through in order. Find the visible action, find the spoken word, find the truth, find the application. Build your sermon to follow that pattern. Open with the visible event so your people see what Jesus did. Move to the spoken word so they hear what He said. Show how the two together preach a single truth about who Jesus is. Then bring that truth into the room where your people sit. I am the resurrection and the life meets the widow in the third row. Your sins are forgiven meets the addict trying to keep coming to church. I am the bread of life meets the businessman who has everything and is starving.

This pattern saves you from the three errors. It refuses to explain the miracle away, because the visible event is the first step. It refuses to stop at spectacle, because the spoken word is the second. It refuses to invent allegory, because the truth must be the one Jesus Himself named.

10. Lazarus, Come Out

The last word in the Lazarus story is not Jesus’ word. It is the bystanders’. After Lazarus walks out of the cave still bound in his graveclothes, Jesus says, Loose him, and let him go. The miracle was Christ’s. The unbinding was His people’s. That is the picture of pastoral ministry. The Lord brings the dead back to life. We unwrap the graveclothes. Christ raises. The pastor releases.

Pastor, every miracle in your Bible is preaching at you and through you. Listen to the spoken word that came alongside the act, and you will hear what Jesus wanted His people to know that they may believe. Preach the visible event as the visible sermon. Preach the spoken word as its interpretation. Then turn to your people, who are bound in their own graveclothes of sin and fear and grief, and say what the Lord told the Bethany crowd to say: Loose them, and let them go.