24 “Then they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said, Father, I thank You, that You have heard me. And I knew that You hear me always: but because of the people that stand by I said it, that they may believe that You have sent me. And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice.” He groaned, He wept, He cried with a loud voice. With what difficulty does one rise who lies crushed under the heavy burden of a habit of sinning! And yet he does rise: he is quickened by hidden grace within; and after that loud voice he rises.
For what followed? “He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And immediately he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with bandages; and his face was bound about with a napkin.” Do you wonder how he came forth with his feet bound, and wonderest not at this, that after four days' interment he rose from the dead? In both events it was the power of the Lord that operated, and not the strength of the dead. He came forth, and yet still was bound. Still in his burial shroud, he has already come outside the tomb.
What does it mean? While you despise [Christ], you lie in the arms of death; and if your contempt reaches the lengths I have mentioned, you are buried as well: but when you make confession, you come forth. For what is this coming forth, but the open acknowledgment you make of your state, in quitting, as it were, the old refuges of darkness? But the confession you make is effected by God, when He cries with a loud voice, or in other words, calls you in abounding grace. Accordingly, when the dead man had come forth, still bound; confessing, yet guilty still; that his sins also might be taken away, the Lord said to His servants: “Loose him, and let him go.” What does He mean by such words? What soever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Source: Tractates on the Gospel of John (New Advent)